tried to convince davis the doors over and to. william davis traces the path of president davis, breckenridge and other members of the confederate cabinet that flood richmond, virginia in 1865. this is just under an hour. [applause] ..

i don't have mad cow disease if. i do apologize if i cough from time to time during the talk. these things are -- i did a tour on the american express. it's in the 1950's that have been tarted up as to look like the original express' a civil war tore from washington on to new orleans. i was the lecturer pure all had to take place in the car which was about 20 feet wide and 70 feet long and there's no place and the microphone didn't work. have you ever tried even thinking on amtrak when it's moving in a hearing yourself? the only way i could be heard was to sit on top of the grand piano in the middle of the card and shout i felt like i should have been singing or taking off my clothes.

[laughter] i tried the latter and they asked me the same. [laughter] what i'm going to talk about some of the subject behind my latest book an honorable defeat. people and historians especially spent time studying how the war begins we don't spend as much time looking into how the end, yet the way the war enzus i think could be just as important if not more important because that goes a long way toward determining what the piece that follows is going to be liked. look at the biggest war within our memory, certainly not mine because i am too young. but within memory, world war ii. the two principal nations who are our opponents, germany and japan surrendered on traditionally. the nation still survives the

systems of government they had prior to their surrender ceased to be we remained in our image by surrender and unconditionally, they rolled over on their backs and said do with us what you will. the civil war is exactly the opposite. the confederacy, the nation seeks to survive. yet the system of the government practice would end each has remained to this day almost virtually unchanged, and that i think is in part because of the confederacy did not surrender unconditionally and didn't have to be beaten down to the last which was nearly the case with germany and japan. one thing anybody this devotees the custody the civil war and the confederacy i think needs to keep in mind constantly the confederate states of america was an intensely political entity in the form of the

confederacy in montgomery alabama and 1861 the considered a founding fathers were somewhat idealistic. we tend not to think of them as being idealist but in some ways, they were. they call themselves not as rebels but as performers and one of the reforms they felt they would have in their system and their nation was they would be a nation without parties, political parties and without politics. they had the idea that having withdrawn from the north they were leaving behind all of the source of discord that they had upset and had a section against section for so long that they will be one happy family since they left the disagreement behind and they would have no partisanship and believed no political parties and there would be no politics as we think of it in the confederacy. this notion lasted about ten minutes. [laughter] because the considered as he was formed by men who were politicians. succumb immediately we were

bound to start coalescing around issues or ideas or men, and in the end a second party did a rise in the confederacy. there were the known of things or the other old parties the confederacy did have two parties. the administration party and the antijefferson davis party and all that held the antijefferson davis party together was you guessed it, the antipathy towards jefferson davis. so they were never a powerful opposition party because on too many issues they agreed with the administration party could only agree they didn't like the president. so they never did much harm. the fact remains that right to the end of the war there was an intense political rivalry within the confederate government command as the opposition to jefferson davis became greater and greater, by 1864 you had people like robert toombs and

alexander stephens, where are our softer millenniums? we have one here earlier. he left. damn good thing, too. they've got a lot to answer for down there. began to call for his removal from office. preferably by constitutional means of south carolina had the notion that they should impeach davis or remove him from office and persuade stevens to agree not to succeed davis as president which constitutionally he was eligible to because stevens was on sound. he had been opposed to secession. they needed somebody there was more sound event stevan and was to install robert e. lee as dictator. i don't know if he was never approached about this, but certainly he would have never counted such an idea. there were others who called for more extreme. robert toombs, never a 10-foot man. actually set of december, 1864 the jefferson davis must be removed or killed or the confederacy is going down the

drain. i don't know that he was actually advocating assassination, but there was at least one assassination, and we do know that there were these couples always powerless because they were often lead the faludi man chongging to plot to remove jefferson davis from office. but he stuck it out. this is how political things remained up until the very end. things began to change dramatically. by the the beginning of 1865 it is pretty apparent to everyone that the handwriting is on the wall, the numbers have worked against the confederacy for too long and especially after the reelection of abraham lincoln of members 64 has made evident that the north is willing to stay the course, and probably the only hopeful confederacy ever had of winning is the number to be willing to lose, the reelection

of lincoln send a signal that they were not willing to lose. people in the south and in the confederate government began to realize it's gone on long enough, we must do something about this. it is up this very moment that the second of the protagonists in the story appears on the scene. one is jefferson davis himself, a remarkable man, extremely intelligent. he had a command of an incredible range of the information from history to the law to the literature to the arts. he had a very open intellect. in some ways, he had a somewhat closed mind. he didn't always do what he could with his intellect but there was no more dedicated consider it in the entire south than jefferson davis. he had begun the war as a champion of southern rights, of localism, state rights, an opponent of big government. but it didn't take him along as president to realize how

impractical the notion of states' rights is, how impractical the idea of localism is when you are in nation in crisis somebody has to be able to make decisions, somebody has to be able to act fast, and you can't wait for the 11 municipalities to hold votes on whether a word to delete goodell to go along. as the war went on to become the ultimate confederate nationalist. indeed much of the criticism levied against him is because it was felt by some that he had usurped power if he was a tyrant centralizing too much power in richmond that really belong to the states. does this sound at all familiar? this argument is still with us today. it's one of the issues the civil war didn't completely settled. for davis himself he reached the point that he had invested so much of himself in the confederacy that it had become a part of him so that he was simply incapable of loving his

brand around the idea that it might be defeated. severely 65 when so many others are seeing that it's over, davis cannot. all he can think of is new ways to try to galvanize the will of the people around the renewed effort of one more sacrifice and he even reached the point he issues a statement that may be apocryphal but certainly represents davis's views this war must go on to the last man of courage immigration to read and when he is gone, our sons must take up our arms and continue the fight. this is a kind of call for victory or armageddon. it is almost -- at almost puts one in mind of a of hitler. i am not comparing davis to hitler. i'm not considering the confederates to nazis.

that isn't it at all. i am saying days is like hitler had reached the point he was no longer able to view the situation rationally because he had so much invested. into this attrition comes a completely different person. davis as you know was very harlem his cabinet. he was a firm believer that if you wanted something done right you must do it yourself and so almost all of his cabinet secretaries during his presidency were reduced to be nothing more than glorified clerks. his secretaries of the war particularly he ran for six secretaries of war. no president in our history has ever had as many incumbents in one cabinet office as did davis because they got frustrated and they couldn't take it. feb come 1865 he brought in the sixth and last but this is a different manner. the fellow he appointed secretary of war is a general john breckinridge of kentucky. they haven't succeeded.

it wasn't a confederate state the secretary of war was going to be in kentucky. the youngest vice president we have ever had come to as constitutionally ineligible for the office for four months when he was nominated in 1856. i like to ask the question does anybody know who the youngest next president was? people always say teddy roosevelt, but it's not, it's richard nixon. nobody thinks that richard nixon was ever younger. [laughter] he was 39 when he took office. but this is an enormously popular in the south and as a matter of fact and 1860's when the democratic party is what, breckinridge represents the southern wing of the party and in comes second to lincoln in the electoral college. 800,000 southern white males

voted for breckinridge for president, said he had an enormous prestige in the population and the south. it would take too long to explain now but as a result of circumstances beyond his control, and much against his wishes, breckinridge ended up being forced out of the union, not southcom and joined the confederacy. he has no military experience, no military training. but then as in the leader times of course it was deemed expedient to get military command to the men who were popular politicians. he hopes that been popular in kentucky might bring kentucky into the confederate said he made him a general. first brigadier-general and then a major general and he rises to the brigade to the conversion and to port command and commands a very small army most notably the famous battle of new market virginia in 1864. the important point being that

by late 1864 and early 80's 65, breckinridge served in every confederate state except arkansas. no other confederate generals all service as wide as his. furthermore, unlike so many others he got along and was on good terms that almost every other army commander in the confederacy including the characters like pierrick christoff because he thought that pierrick sounded too foreign. [laughter] breckinridge got along well with the joseph johnston, the only army commander in the union and the confederacy with whom breckinridge didn't get along and that is a badge of honor in the confederate. so on top of this enormous political prestige that he had from before the war she now have substantial military prestige because he had served so widely and was well regarded by so many of the confederate command. what that meant was with this

appointed secretary of war this was a man for a change he put not treated as a clerk he had a greater prestige in the south at that point than did jefferson davis. so when breckinridge spoke davis might not have to do what he advised, but davis was going to have to listen because davis knew. davis was a smart politician. davis knew that breckinridge had an enormous constituency behind him, and what happens from february 1865 to breckinridge's appointed right to the collapse of the government and the capture of davis and the flight of the members of the government is a political story of a from the battle between these two men fought over the confederate victory because that was impossible but the battle of the confederacy was going to die. breckinridge's pherae and i think he was right if the

confederacy surrendered as a nation to stop armies in the field, even if they were desertion was rampant and the face defeat in the campaign, still the army is represented at least some threat to the union and it was going to cost lincoln more time, more blood and more treasure to beat those are me in detail down to the last man. of the confederates were to save lincoln and the north, that expenditure in a trauma in an honorable surrender, then the north might be willing to grant better terms to the south than they would get if they just kept fighting until they were completely annihilated. remember again, germany and japan they were not able to make terms. they have to surrender unconditionally and take what ever we wished to impose upon them. and this is his sense. he said we will gain the respect of our enemies and leave behind ourselves a record that our

prosperity can be proud of if we surrender as people as a nation rather than being beaten in detail. davis of course cannot account the idea of surrender and insist on the continuing to fight on and on. and what happens is not a plot, not to come everything breckinridge does is entirely constitutional but he begins to meet with prominent members of the confederate congress particularly senator robert hunter run by his initials, rmt. people that knew him said it sued for run madtom. he was the most selfish man on a encountered in history but the senior senator from virginia and had enormous influence. he also hoped if the confederacy lasted long enough he would meet jefferson davis as a successor as president. hunter and other members of the senate began to meet with breckinridge to discuss this idea and what breckinridge comes

up with is the proposal that hunter will introduce on the floor of the senate resolutions calling on president davis to open the negotiations with the union leaning towards surrender. of course davis would veto but if they could build a veto-proof majority in the senate then he would have no choice. it's offered to the constitutional. but they still had to do it in backroom meetings because you don't want this to get into the press. they are not going to try to replace jefferson davis. they are going to use the legal political means to try to maneuver the way around them. in a lot of people i think are going to be suppressed that some of the people who were involved. i won't give away the whole story because the nobody has to buy the book. [laughter] but i can tell you one person who was willing to involved in these meetings is general robert e. lee who says to the very intelligent man lee has come to realize by this time that he for

many people represent the confederacy. there's no question in his mind that his men are fighting for him rather than the confederacy and he is aware if he added his voice to the call for davis to open the negotiations he would be seen as speaking not just for the army in northern virginia but all confederate armies because remember by this time she's now the general in chief of all confederate armies. i will tell you anymore than that it's going to surprise a lot of people to realize that even lee is involved in this. he's a man that better than most generals in our history the understood and honored the constitutional dividing line between the military and the political and you rarely ever cross it but in this instance himself having probably a better vantage point than anyone else to realize how desperate the

situation was he was willing to step across that line, and you will have to read the book to find out what he does. it doesn't work out. he won't do it. he chickens out maybe because he doesn't want and the confederacy because it ends his chance of being president which is a laugh that would have had to last another two years before he had a chance of becoming president and the confederacy at that point would have been down to about mcdonald's somewhere in east tennessee so they're losing territory in huge chunks day after day. so breckinridge try another tack. if he can't get hunter and others in the senate to help him do this even calls on the heads of all of the departments, the bureau within his war department for their honest statement of the condition of the department. he knows what the response is going to be. and when they all turn in their reports containing nothing but gloom and detail of dissolution and chaos and shortage, he then takes these and turns them over to jefferson davis as a

persuasion. this is the awful condition that we are in and he ads to it a free port from robert e. lee about the conditions his hope being if people on the senate would simply call for all these reports to be made public that would force the people to force davis. the u.s. grand moves on richmond and the fall of richmond essentially breaks up any further chances for this kind of political maneuver but throughout his concern as he expressed in one of the meetings to the senators is this has been a magnificent effort and dodd's name of it let terminate in a farce. it would be jefferson davis increasing as a nation of calling on the confederate

troops to disband and go to the hills to become guerrillas thinking somehow if they kept resisting and definitely that they could win. i think anybody that studies history much knows what happens when a site is in the process of being defeated resorts to the expedient it accomplishes nothing and prolongs the heartache and poland's qtr but because the bloodiest war with no point at the end of the so-called girl option very quickly found to be the correct conclusion that there was never vote for it. that davis simply wasn't willing to give up. but once again, no one will act so breckinridge then approaches the governor fans of north carolina. breckinridge parenthetically after the war becomes a pretty good for friend of general grant

and and and the reason may be apparent that they shared a common trait no matter how often when they got going in a direction they were stymied or stopped or stalled they didn't turn back. they've found another route to approach the same public and time after time as he attempts to maneuver him toward surrender or stymied he just tries another avenue. effort is went falcon and breckinridge started preparing for the fall of richmond the day after he took office as the secretary of war in 1865, two months before it happened he knew it was going to happen and he had his department ready knowing that once it had fallen he would contact the governor of carolina to tell him north carolina maybe very important very soon. how will let you introducing a new legislature, the call for a convention between the states for davis to approach the northwood of surrender. he's still trying one evan bayh after another. april 2nd comes and richmond

falls. they organize the evacuation as i said. he also organizes the flight of the confederate government, and the confederacy becomes a government on wheels. yet even then remember what i said of his comment that this has been a magnificent effort he wanted the confederacy to be remembered so while the secretary of state and many other functions and the government or seen dumping huge piles of archives in the st of richmond setting them on fire before they leave town, breckinridge gives strict orders to all of the archives of the war department are to be boxed up and created and put on cars and taken out of richmond and put under guard so that eventually he will order them to be turned over to the federal authority so that the story of the confederacy could be told. any historian who writes about the considered a seat today especially the military aspect goes a great debt to breckinridge and his generals

samuel cooper who preserve this incredible archive and turned over intact to the union and breckinridge was one other thing he leaves behind is assistant secretary of war campbell who has instructions to meet with president clinton if he can and try to present what had been breckinridge's plan for what i call the confederate reconstruction. what he was hoping for is if the south surrendered as a nation, first of all, that the army wouldn't be surrendered but they would be disbanded. very important distinction. surrender your army and turnover your weapons the units discourse and the men go home but under this plan of disbanding them, the men would keep their weapons and would go home as organized units. why is that important? the interior of the confederacy is suffering almost complete social breakdown to rid of law and order has ceased to be imposed by the confederate the confederacy and there are sections about alabama, georgia,

even parts of mrs. it becomes of west virginia, east the confederate authorities have no influence was way whatsoever. the people of the civilians of those territories are at the mercy of deserting, the tories that is the unionists, symbol renegades, runaway slaves, all of whom are essentially pricing of the considered citizens. this is chaos and there's no one to impose order. the idea is if we send the military units home, they can immediately become a civil police and impose order and that will make the transaction back into the union that much easier. second, there would be no trials, the prosecution's for treason except for davis and the cabinet breckinridge realized the functionaries would have to play some kind of trial. there would be no last confiscation of property, and most important, but the north would recognize the existing

state governments of the constituents confederate states. the governors would continue to hold their offices, the legislatures will continue to hold their offices. but what that meant is a remarkably smooth process going from the confederate states to the united states. it's designed to keep acrimony to a minimum and to try to ease as much as possible what was going to be very difficult process in any case of reconstructing the union and campbell manages to have a meeting in which he proposes this. we only have campbell's account of what lincoln said in response he seemed favorably disposed, but we don't know and in any case within 12 days lincoln himself is dead and the whole issue is moot. meanwhile the government is now of the wheel. it's referred to as the government goes on to dan veldt va and set up the capitol for a few days and davis as evidence of his inability to the idea of

defeat he issues a proclamation in which he says essentially if it's too bad we lost rich and maybe it's not so bad after law because now the army isn't tied down defending a particular piece of territory. now we are free to go where we want to become a flood like butterflies and sting like bees and he tried to turn it into a silk purse because the confederate communications research disrupted by this point that nobody outside of banjul ever heard the proclamation does the lines were down, the mail system was disrupted but this was evidence of davis's mindset at this stage. he points them to comply. the governments are forced to move again and they had gone into north carolina, greensboro, north phill, charlotte eventually. and along the way they now have to deal with the issue of the other confederate army of tennessee commanded by general

joe johnston. johnston like breckinridge wants it over the red johnston of course never wanted to fight in the first place. he was a man that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity when his commanding an army. but now she was anxious to seize the opportunity under surrender. he was at least pressure in this instance. he recognized the situation. he asked davis for permission to enter negotiations with william t. sherman. davis said yes thinking that nothing would come of it but that would buy time for davis to rally support against. but he never quits. never gives up this idea. but, what happens is that johnston asks breckinridge to accompany him for the negotiations at sherman and very quickly it turns into something altogether different. the open the negotiations not for the surrender of johnston's army but the surrender of all of the remaining confederate armies. who has the authority to do that? only davis but in the discussions with sherman,

breckinridge says i will take the authority and the responsibility to myself. it is essentially a usurpation of presidential power. it's probably the biggest attempt to usurp power since alexander haig said i am in charge here. [laughter] but if breckinridge did it and was agreed and is presented as a fait accompli there may have been very little that davis could have done. so what do they get in their agreement with sherman? every single thing that breckinridge have in his confederate construction plant. the disbanding of the army taking their weapons and going over the unions. no mass confiscation. this went far beyond military issues in setting civil policy for reconstruction. interestingly enough, even though breckinridge admitted as did johnston slavery was almost surely dead. nowhere in that cartel did you find any mention either of the emancipation proclamation or the

recently passed 13th amendment of the slavery. think that the theoretical possibility. if under this plan those confederate states managed simply to slide back into the union without being forced to acknowledge and ratify the 13th amendment as eventually they were in the reconstruction forced to ratify that when the amendment came to them for the ratification they could vote against it and those 11 confederate states would be more than enough to defeat. they might have lost the war and in a one the peace recording on to slavery. now whether the northern government stood for that, i don't know. they might have gone into a revolution of their own against the constitution to keep that from happening. but the point is even sherman leaders was listed those boys coming johnston and breckinridge pushed him that day. they got everything they could if asked for. of course washington rejected the peace cartel. sherman only had authority to treat for the surrender of his

own army which johnston almost immediately does. he surrenders his own army. significantly johnston does not notify davis that he is going to do it. he only notifies breckinridge, and define it is over and over again by the stage and the government that this really john breckinridge is essentially running the confederate government. now people look to him rather than days this because they regard him as one said, only he knew what was happening what should be done and what ought to be done. johnston's army of surrender, the government has to continue its flight because north carolina is now intend. they run out of railroads and now they get on horseback and they become a government on horseback. in south carolina, and again, the battle between the friendly adversaries continues. davis now wants to get west. he thinks he can ride across alabama, georgia, mississippi to

reach the calgary and take them all out to texas and they can continue the fight. if they can told texas they will go to west texas and if they can't, they will go to the new mexico territory. if he can't do that, they will go into mexico itself and build their time until they can take the calls back north and secure their independence. this is how completely unable he was to counter the idea of defeat. and breckinridge's goal at the same time and virtually all others including the postmaster general is my favorite cabinet member she's a wonderful guy come and enjoy fighter from west texas, she has a beard like an enormous muskrat hanging from his chin and he wears what is described as the dirtiest cut in the capitol the reason being he chews tobacco constantly and he never quite misses the coat. [laughter] so he must have been a real day

at the beach she always wears a top hat and has been dented in the side canted over like this and he's constantly twiddling big sticks. he looks like the country courthouse but he is a deft and skilled and canny politician and he knows how to get what he wants. many of you will notice and some may not. he's the only man in history that ran the post office department and profit. some of the letters were still being delivered. [laughter] but he made a profit, and ronald reagan knows what needs to be done. by this time he's become an ally and they're both trying to persuade days away from this dream of getting to the west to continue the fight, and instead trying to persuade the president to get out of the country to safety. they don't want him put on trial. remember all of these men are under indictment for treason to the district of columbia is under indictment in his home

state of kentucky as well as the district of columbia because kentucky remained loyal to the union. they want davis to be safely out of the country for his own personal safety and also so there will be no embarrassing show trials to add to once again the force he doesn't want the confederacy in the to become and he wavers back and forth. one day he seems to agree okay the game is up i will get out. the next his fighting spirit comes back and he can't admit defeat and he keeps planning its debt somehow to get out west. finally they reach washington georgia on may 3rd and 4th of 1865. by this time all of the other members of the cabinet fallen by the wayside and have gone home and have decided to give themselves up. only breckinridge, reagan and secretary of state benjamin remain at this point secretary of state benjamin decides it's time for him to get out and he intends to ease cape she's going

to save his skin which he does. a word about that shortly. and it is agreed now that davis is going to hit south. he thinks it still to get to the west. breckinridge thinks he's going to try to get out of the country. breckinridge has been commanding all along will lead a decollate party off of the northwest hoping to lure the federal's after him to buy president davis time to escape but it doesn't work for two reasons. there are too many federal and davis takes his time. he's slowed down by having his wife and children with him and there are some who maintain that he really didn't want to escape, that he preferred to be captured for reasons i will get to in a minute. but we tend 1865 they are surrounded and supplies early in the morning and captured with no one being injured. jefferson davis isn't dressed as a woman when he was captured.

no one knows how the story got started that you find these photographs of him in a skirt and all this. it was an off the shoulder number and bikini briefs. that's all that was. [laughter] he was dressed in a garment that was a unisex raincoat. men and women both wore them and they are interchangeable, but it made good spin for the war department to allow the country to think that davis had been captured trying to hide because it denigrated davis and a made a fool of him and that helped to further discredit the confederate cause so that from this point of view i don't think the war department invented the story that they were certainly willing to capitalize on it. when that happened, everybody else agreed to get away. benjamin is making his way south. benjamin is a hopeless character a little coral legally die who can light a match and not

kidding. he smokes cigars constantly so he had someone waiting them for him. everyone thought that he was the one member of the government that had no hope of the skating because he could sit on a horse. he's just helpless. but he does escapes. he changes his name and rides in devotee down to florida and find sense of a nicely place not far from tampa and stays there for some time taking doing a little golf i suppose that he gets on the boat and they sailed on the gulf coast of florida to read benjamin assumes so he takes suit not to appear to be black but to look like he's been slaving over a hot stove. a man that can't light the stove but he is slaving over it. they have a couple of the adventures they reach the keys and it's decided he's going to get to england so they will sail so they start sailing out into the atlantic and on the second

day they are hit by what amounts to a tornado at sea that almost swamps them and then another one hits them and another. they wear a whole day dodging disaster and happily they reach and he gets on a larger vessels still the sale but this time heading for nassau and it sinks. they managed to get into a life raft and the float about in the open ocean for a while until happily the ship comes along and find them. they then reach nassau and goes to havana and when he takes shape to go from england today's out the ship that he's on catches fire. i am convinced even though he had been dead for some years that he was on the titanic. [laughter] he had the worst part of anyone on earth but finally he gets another vessel and typical he never looks back. his confederate career is over and he scarcely maintains contact with former confederates

including jefferson davis. he starts a new career to our free lives before. now he becomes an english barrister a lawyer and eventually rises to the queens council and will write some three important british case law and when he dies she is a very respected member of the british bar and no one expected him to escapes. and only one other escapes and that is breckinridge himself whose goal is not to get out of the country but also she wants to get to texas so he can surrender the last remaining army out there and his escape is something that only hollywood could devise come and get in fact is all true. he doesn't disguise himself very well either. his aim is breckinridge and he starts calling himself colonel. writing south with john taylor, the very prominent, his own sons and a few other people they get into the boat and go down there ever living off of alligators and turtle eggs and some kind of strange bread they bought from

the local seminal when they finally reach the point for the land supporting the union they drag the boat over into the atlantic and decide they are going to sail from bermuda. the start to sail from bermuda and they get hit by a tornado at sea so they turn back and realize it isn't large enough it is not seaworthy enough to get them to bermuda's they will continue south and try to reach cuba. the first time they see a larger sailboat is only about 18 feet long. the plan bandannas and they draw their guns and sale to this other boat and essentially in the middle of the water they steal the other boats and there were a bunch of coasters and renegades in any case and the only thing they didn't do in the party a few months later he said he was sorry they hadn't made the others fellows walk the plank. [laughter] they are boyte up by this and have a larger vessels so they keep on sailing south.

the new provisions for the voyage and become a place none of you have heard of called portales but many of you have been there. it's miami. if only they had bought real estate while they were there. [laughter] fort nellis is a small trading post operated by the deserters, renegades and runaway slaves and symbols. it is a pretty daunting place, and when these consider its come sailing into fort dallas hoping to buy goods from the renegades in fort dallas expect they may be scaping members of the confederate government who might have this mysterious confederate treasurer with them and they decide the thing to do is to tell them and so what happens is the renegades come out and we now have a renehan gun battle at sea which means a couple of renegades are chasing a breckinridge and his people, and ironically the only time in the entire civil war that we know of that he fires a shot at someone it is after the war is over for the sale but as he shoots back

at some of the renegades in the canoe. peacekeeping than the immediately run into the civil patrols want and have better chase at sea to escape. finally they reached the florida keys and sail across to cuba in a hurricane. john taylor spent his entire life at sea and said afterwards he was never in such fear of his life as he was. it's a marvelous story but by the time they reach cuba he gets word he doesn't need to because kirby smith is now surrendering but he is still the highest ranking member of the confederate government and he does one last act he issues a statement to the press this will broadcast from cuba eventually across the nation calling on all of the romanian confederate haven't turned in their weapons and haven't taken their role to do so. it is over, go home. he goes into exile for three

years. you may not notice that at the end of the war somewhere around 10,000 confederate left the country. it's the largest mass expatriation of my history until probably the late 1960's or early 70's when it may be a larger number of young men left the country to escape the draft. many of these people are under indictment. breckinridge certainly is and certainly is a symbolic leader of all the people, so he decides he will lot go home and risk the trial until all consider its can go home suspense three years in exile. where does he choose to go to exile? he goes a place called viagra on the lake in canada and in toronto which is on the niagara river directly across from fort niagara in new york the border between canada and new york. remember this was a man that never wanted to leave the union had never wanted to be considerate. and as he said himself he went to viagra on the lake so that

every morning he could walk down to the river and watch the stars and stripes to look over fort niagara on the other side in the country he couldn't return to and every night he was there by the bank of the river to watch the flag come back down. finally come in december of 1868 largely as a result of friends of breckinridge a universal amnesty was declared and all confederates could come up. when that happened, he did. as for jefferson davis he spends two years in jail but for monroe and then finally it is brought to trial in richmond but the union authorities are not stupid and they realize the have nothing to gain from the trial than doing it anything to davis that might exaggerate or activate or exacerbate all of the hate that is still their support richmond issue is essentially a adjustment of we will not prosecute and he walks out a free man, probably the most disappointed man in america because he wanted his trial

defiant to the end, convinced she was right he believed in the courtroom he could prove that he and the consider it had been right all along. but he never got his chance. how did the battle between the two and up? either one, neither one lost. they didn't go liberal option, as we don't know the fact they didn't go that option may have had some impact making the big construction less onerous than that was already. they didn't surrender as a nation either and who is to say that if the had been reconstruction might not have been as difficult as it was. we don't know. all we know is it is a fascinating struggle between the man that remain friends over not hold on to the patch of chongging to determine the future. thank you all for listening. [applause]

>> we've got about five to ten minutes for questions. yes, sir. >> in your discussions of archives i have heard is often that in the 90's for example of the onslaught of technology and so forth that essentially we have entered into a period of the dark ages as far as archival work across the world so the history and knowledge of our civilization essentially is moving parts and is being lost. can you comment on that? >> did everybody here the question? because of technology in our age and the chief enemies today are the telephone and e-mail the when told the cia or somebody has been hidden away that week in an archival dark age and we are to recover descendants i think will find it much easier to know about people of the

1860's than it will be to know about us because we don't leave records behind. we no longer write letters. i do because i'm country and i can't figure out the computer. [laughter] but we -- so much of what we do now is ephemeral. e-mail it is often for someone. the telephone is what is really. what will remain behind probably to give people an idea of what your lives are like will mostly be your charge account records because someplace there will be a tape will have all this material and get your tax returns will be there as of the descendants may know a lot about us financially and demographically. but i think they have a much reduced chance of knowing us personally compared to what we are able to know about our ancestors and most americans don't keep diaries anymore. i just finished teaching my first class at virginia tech. most people can't write a declarative sentence. [laughter] is their anybody else? yes, sir.

it's been a high of two questions about jefferson davis. can you discuss the assassination plot and then second, did davis suffered a nervous breakdown of total disappointment? >> the first question about the assassination to assassinate davis? nobody knows much about it. all we know is and i wrote a book about this once it's a long time ago and my brain has turned to putting so i don't remember all the details. he was out riding his horse or was just about to get on his horse and a gun shot was heard and a bullet went by easier so it is presumed this was an assassination attempt but no one knows who did it or if it was a lone gunman or grassy mall. we don't know. there was a plot to kidnap davis but it was never put into effect. i'm sorry, what was the other question? >> did davis suffered a nervous breakdown for his disciplined and at the end of the war.

>> did he suffer a nervous breakdown? i don't know, and that is one thing we had agreed difficulty giving diagnosing medical ailments and especially emotional and psychological element. he was seen leading frequently in part monroe. part of that was a humiliation to refer to what they see exactly chained and handcuffed but also certainly the overwhelming -- this man had been under enormous chilling pressure for four years. he suffered the kind of pressure that davis did with constant tragedy everything that he tried to build being disintegrated. is there is no question. whether or not he had a nervous breakdown on inclined to say not. but he did after he got out of prison take a long european trip which they have certainly done a lot. but he remained in those spirits for a long time.

>> [inaudible] >> m i of relation to jefferson davis? is and no 39 related two jefferson davis. he's my son. [laughter] she is not named after the confederate president. no one ever believed this but it's true the but i wouldn't name mize and after the confederate president. jefferson is a name that has been in almost every generation of my family going back to about 1808 comes along and related to my son but i'm not related to the confederate president. yes, sir. >> the government involved in the assassination of president lincoln? >> what are my thoughts on the federal government involved in the assassination of lincoln? i think that is one of those questions we will never have an answer to. i will tell you what jefferson davis has reputed. fighting the only time that he ever complemented abraham lincoln the proposal to davis that an attempt should be to made to kidnap lincoln and to

bring himself and told him somehow hostage in return for the release of the confederate prisoners and the war or perhaps even for a confederate independent. davis is reported as saying by william preston johnston they wouldn't do any good. lincoln would die rather than be taken he is a western man in a western man will not give any fight to the dead. there are a couple of interesting books that have been done in the recent years that at least a circumstantial case with a loss of connections between benjamin c. department and the connection lines that are the so-called doctor's line connecting richmond to washington and with john wilkes booth and some of the other people behind the union lines. but whether or not -- the deals are follow the money. well, apparently some of his people were using confederate

state department funds but whether benjamin or davis knew the purpose of that, there is no evidence to i am inclined to say that it's not likely, not because i'm partial to jefferson davis. it's simply out of character. there are all sorts of things he should have done three like for instance trying to interfere in the election of 1864 in the north to the defeat avis wouldn't do it because it was not what the gentleman did. and there were other things as well for davis's st of character would not allow him to do. and i think and assassinating of the heads of state would be something that would not, that davis would account. >> last question, yes, sir. >> with the strong opposition that the central government had in the south why didn't the individual states start suing for peace and is everything started tumbling around, why did they have to wait for the quote on quote central government to do it since it was the individual start anyway.

>> why do the individual states start trying to sue for peace. as the mcginn georgia the governor was joe browne of the confederate politics in the controversy the sun was shining he would say now what is and without looking outside the window to see if it was or not. and in et 64 there were discussions about a brown opening of the negotiations with sherman who now of course is happily marching through georgia towards some kind of a separate peace or armistice to protect georgia from what was going on the brown it didn't go the distance. it was suggested to the governor in north carolina that perhaps the same thing should be pursued best of the governors were not willing to. >> their twisting things around

to the purpose actually argue that he didn't have the authority to surrender. his oath as president was to preserve to protect and defend as lincoln. so davis couldn't open the negotiations. only the individual states that had the power, the sovereignty. only they could decide the convention among themselves to sue for peace. he knew it would take years to get these people together to agree on something like that. so this stance on the one hand he is a man that uses every bit of power he can. he says i can't touch it, and i hope none of you have been touched by like mad cow disease. thank you. [applause]

now more from little rock. booktv visited the city with the help of our local cable partner comcast of central arkansas of arkansas and basically it is controversial people of whom there are some questions that maybe can be answered and maybe

can't, but people are always complex and it's always a mistake to try to simplify them and say they did this just one reason. one of the interesting people in the book is a woman born in ohio but her parents moved to arkansas which was a little girl and grew up here and lived the rest of her life in arkansas. the temperance was the idea of the women's suffrage ones and little rock although she didn't finish and earn a degree so she started doing research in various things as they did abraham lincoln and more than one biography of abraham lincoln but got upset when in arkansas lincoln middle kind of jokes about arkansas and wanted to prove the arkansas gazette uncivilized and uncultured. the natural history of indian artifacts and various kinds of

things that were founder of the animals on display. whenever she could get donated and whatever she to get money raised by she put on display in the museum to be the start of a little storefront here in little rock and then ended up in city hall. in the great depression came along and they closed the museum and put things in storage. a lot of it disappeared and the newspaper writers pulled things of the garbage on the fun things in the alley. but bernie held on to it and eventually into that the arsenal which is about a mile south of here, south of downtown little rock. and she was able to get permission to put the museum back on display in the old u.s. arsenal of larocco and that's where she put on things like a piece of sandstone people thought was hundreds and hundreds of-years-old and actually probably was at 20th century but she wasn't willing to admit that possibility of the time and she lived in the basement of the building and basically just cleaned other

community groups use the building and there are actually lost since about which the group could use which room but she fought for the right to put things on display. 18 eda the general macarthur was born in little rock in the arsenal building so she got the please rename the lagat them to come back to the dedication of the new name. the museum that she started from the museum of discovery which is right here in the market district of arkansas right close to the arkansas studies institute and proof that is where a lot of the papers are. some were letters and some of the work she did and photographs that she took part in the collections in the studies institute which is on the central arkansas library campus. but she just kept on writing. in fact she was found in her elderly years passed away in her cabinet on the mountain landis did in her hands and is dedicated to writing and telling the story of arkansas selecting as much information as c