key to a better life but i really think he fought all of us would just come back home and try to work from there. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> this is the first parish church. it is here in pew number 23 that harriet beecher stowe by her account saw a vision of uncle tom being whipped to death. ..

>> for the next 90 minutes, we will explore the literary culture of this area in the special collections of this state and the country as well. >> this is the first parish church and it is significant to the story of "uncle tom's cabin." in many ways, harriet beecher stowe, by her account and fugue number 23, had a vision of uncle tom being put to death. uncle tom, as you know, is the hero of her 1852 novel, "uncle tom's cabin." the story of "uncle tom's cabin"

is that he was a very good slave who is under an unruly owner that is so irritated by him and his goodness that he whips him to death. this is a scene in which the entire novel grows. harriet beecher stowe came from a very religious family who are located in ohio, where she grew up. they were a highly religious family and they weren't antislavery family. she was married to calvin stowe,

who was a theology professor and doctor of divinity. her full understanding of the spiritual world in which she lived was all dictated by god. by the hand of god. she also said about uncle tom's cabin it wasn't her who wrote "uncle tom's cabin", but the hand of god who wrote this novel, because she had very specific idea that slavery was wrong, morally wrong, and that it should be abolished, regardless of what the laws of the state or the country said at the time. she came to brunswick because her husband got a job at bowdoin college. he stayed in ohio and and later moved to andover, in order to complete his contract there is a professor. she came without him with their

children, and she was also six months pregnant. and she moved to brunswick in order to take up residency here, awaiting the arrival of her husband. the stories that were told of harriet beecher stowe is that she was a small and petite woman. she did not take much care in terms of how she dressed. but she was also very numerous for a woman of her time. she was known then mostly as a housewife. she wrote that she was totally overwhelmed with the number of children -- she had seven and she was pregnant -- that is what you would see as an overworked housewife and mother who came to worship here, probably with her children and her sisters, catherine beecher, and they all became members of this church. we first meet uncle tom in his hut. he is in a slave huts. he is learning to read the

bible. the bible is an inner text or "uncle tom's cabin." because what we do, right and wrong, is what this novel is telling us what is right and wrong. and now reader, what would you do in this situation? would you do the right thing or the wrong thing? that kind of moral quarter is what she is re-creating in "uncle tom's cabin." she is re-creating a new bible of the 19th century, given the complex over slavery at the nation is facing. >> we are at number 63 on the street.

she lived in rented this house from the landlord who lived down the road. palace, when she moved in, she complained about the state of disrepair. it was drafty and cold, but over time she slowly managed to do some renovations herself, and she wrote funny letters back to her friends and family about how hard it was to get people to help her with these repairs. because you have these long conversations, she said it was the epitome of yankee dumb. she got people to help her out, she paid $125 per month for this house, which is much more than they could afford. she lived here for two years. she lived here with her children, her husband, calvin, and also her sister, catherine

beecher, came to live with her, too. a house full of people. we will go inside and it is a pretty big home that could accommodate a lot of people. but maybe not that many people. >> here we are in the house. it has been completely renovated, the carpets, the staircase has even been transformed, there are some original wallpapers underneath, but even that doesn't to harriet beecher stowe's time. the house has gone through many reincarnations. but it was important to her because it was where she was able to think and write about her novel, "uncle tom's cabin." to me, one of the importance is of this house is the kitchen. because the kitchen is the whole

heart of who she was. in the kitchen, and we don't know if this is so it by all means, but she taught her children classes, she taught them an old style of homeschooling, and also invited children from the neighborhood to think and work with her. she gave readings. both of her own stuff that she was writing, but also she would read aloud from the bible, from the novels of sir walter scott, the waverley novels, for instance, this is really the place where it all happened and took place where uncle tom said that the church came alive can live in this house. she wrote in installments. she would write passage by passage, unlike the way charles dickens would write, he would write quickly and cinnamon immediately. she needed time to have space,

in between taking care of the children in cooking and cleaning -- doing all those things at the same time. that is how you squeeze in these things. that is probably one she wrote. >> she had a dedication to the craft of writing. she would write in a way that could actually be read by people like her and her children. "uncle tom's cabin" is also a great children's story. that is who she was writing for. she was writing to educate young people. educate them on the politics and social situations of the time. before the publication of "uncle tom's cabin", they were living off of calvin's salary, which was not very much. it was really after the publication of "uncle tom's cabin" and she became a famous

author. the most famous author in america, if not the world. this novel brought her great fame and with it came -- some prosperity, but it would've been more if she would've negotiated a contract. she continued to write and she wrote prolifically after the publication of "uncle tom's cabin." before that, she had mostly written sketches for magazines and things like that. but this was her first big novel. after that she wrote income generating novels. she was a housewife who didn't have much of an income. but after "uncle tom's cabin" she became prosperous. she wrote a testament after the publication of "uncle tom's

cabin." this is where she lived after what the novel that for her personally. the houses in the process of renovation and being acceptable to the public. so it is still undergoing conversations and the process. we are hoping that something makes it accessible to the people in maine and those who are serious about the novel and the woman who wrote it. the community of brunswick, maine, welcomes everyone with open arms. not only was she ate spouse of someone who worked at the college, but in her own right, she appealed to the neighbors and i think that she might have been something of an eccentric. you know? there are stories of her being very harried looking into some of these things at the same time

-- she made friendships with people in the neighborhood in brunswick. that is another part of the legacy of harriet beecher stowe in brunswick. the third and last stop on our brunswick, maine, to her, we are he with the special collections with richard benjamin. we are going to look at some of the documents to see how the novel evolved. as i said before, this is how she fit in, chapter by chapter, and it became increasingly popular. they have no intention of it becoming a full-fledged novel. but because it was so popular, it transformed into a full-fledged novel. in 1852, this is a first edition, in the first week it sold 10,000 copies.

>> so it has continued to be popular under time? >> the national audience had about 15,000 subscribers, could be read as a group. we have both markets and urban centers, which allow them the british reading public and to buy them affordably, if you think about them is serious about this, they tend to be that kind of domestic fiction. >> it was the most popular form of fiction in the mid-19th century. >> hawthorne expressed great amount of success of "uncle tom's harriet

beecher stowe's popularity. she is well documented among women of the 19th century. >> and this is probably one of the most influential works of literary fiction in american history. it is not just in 1852. the popularity, as richard was saying, it's coming right to the present during the jim crow era, it happened again, and became a very important. not just an important influence in other writings, but political figures and social activists.

it was written to model his work during the reconstruction era after uncle tom's cabin. james baldwin said in 1955 for him, to come in the 1960s, no novel have ever exerted influence over him. let the power of uncle tom's cabin touch you. >> augusta, maine, was established by english settlers from the planet colony in 1629 and was settled as a town in 19 -- 1674. we are working with her partner, time warner cable, to explore the city and the atmosphere.

>> you have people like stephen king, people who enjoy reading his books, and we have people who like reading about small-town maine. but i think the mainers also like stories about nonfiction, stories about the state, people similar to them. and i think, you know, they want to read stories about states that are laying block. i'm not sure they are the typical reader, but if i could say anything, they are people who want a good story. you know, and not a pretentious story. i think you often see people in the state of maine who may be wealthy, but they will wear the shirts and they don't show off their wealth. they want people that are true, not flashy or chile, or even relating to the story about a simple, you know, simple people who go about their lives. the writers take from what they

know. they write about memoirs and families and historical things that have happened in the state of maine. whether it is more about the sea in our connection, the state of maine has a great addition to tradition as well. mainers and canadians love their sea stories. those real stories about our past, joshua chamberlain, for example, who is greatest during the civil war, i think that mainers like most states are very proud of their history. they want to learn about leaders who have inspired people, like our leaders, senator susan collins and people enjoy knowing more about their history and their past. >> next, booktv travel just outside of augusta, maine, to hear from colby college professor and author larissa taylor. she talks about her book "the virgin warrior: the life and death of joan of arc." >> welcome well, i wasn't very

interested in joan of arc at all. not at first. she was too much of a teenage girl anomaly that went off to fight. she changed the 100 year war. then i saw some films, some bad ones and the ones. it really kind of made me think. but this girl could be more interesting than what i thought. from that i realized in the library that there were more original materials about joan of arc, in kings and queens. the typical portrayal of her as someone who is just a force of god or a force of the saints. when i started reading the documents, because we not only have her voice at the trial, but we have the villages and the soldiers that she bought with, who testified 25 years after her death.

they would say things like those she didn't want to dance with us, and that's got me as odd. they said that they made fun of her. so maybe she was a little bit bullied as a girl. when she left home for the first time, her family household had become very repressive. her brothers were cackling over but the fact that she was going off and talking to people in other towns. her father threatened to drown her if she ran off to war. so they tried to marry her off. and joan of arc actually ran on her own and thought the marriage contract and one. she was not a fun loving girl. she was more of a pilgrimage and in a little bit on according to the local people. but she got her way, she ran on two separate missions, to see the captain tried to get him to

let her cry. at that point, he gave her a go-ahead. what are of the things as a historian is that i have to feel the places that i study. i tried to trace all of her visits, not on horseback, but he by either going to all of the places that she went, trying to get a sense of the kind of journey that she made. she went 11 days through enemy territory controlled by england just to get to the future area. so the fact that she was willing to do that as a 17-year-old girl is astonishing to me. once she was given the seal of approval, even gynecological to

make sure she was pure and a good catholic, she was finally fitted with armor, which by the way, i tried on versions of it myself and it is astonishing that a 17 year old could wear armor, said sit on a horse, have a standard and that's all they want her to do. she would fight the english that way because they had been besieged for about six months at a time. when they finally got joan of arc ready to go, she looked the part, she already had been very outspoken and even sassy and responses to them. and they finally sent her. it was about february 1429 when they decided to outfit her for war. they center and have been chomping at the vet. people who saw her said she was like a woman in labor, waiting to have a baby. she wanted to get to war. and i think that is one of the most prominent characteristics of joan. she loved war. she is not this crying saying.

she is a woman who is full of action and self-confidence and really wants to do all of it all the kings men have not been able to do. that is a live social girlishly, they were giving gifts to the english and so forth, she wanted to be like the english and i think she had a vision that was very far ahead of its time in the sense that she imagine dynastic factions fighting against themselves. it didn't happen during her lifetime, but she started to create that idea. so she thought with in the week that she arrived. joan of arc insisted on being a warrior and a leader. major decisions that could of got her in trouble.

where she was born, it was a frontier town. now it has only about 150 inhabitants. it is very small. there is a sense that she was a very big fish in a little pond. later on, in warfare and with enemy judges or otherwise, it shows that she really wasn't afraid of anything, including her own family. so i think that she wanted to get out of her home town, so she went about 8 miles to the north, she lied to get there. many times in her lifetime, her short lifetime, she lied to get what she wanted because she had agreed to a greater mission. i went to the valley and retrace your route as much as i could go into the towns.

that is where she said that her famous sword would be found. the only problem is she had massed there several times. so the king asked her if she knows her and she said no. so that was many examples of her fabricating the truth a little bit. but she was determined to get away from home. i think that's one of my favorite findings. to me, i don't use the word easily because my students do, not as the word to describe her as awe. she had wounds, she stepped on a spike trap, she had stones fall on her head, and she made major leadership positions. how can a 17 up to 19 year old worldview that? it cannot happen today to the same degree. i think she became a much more

than what they planned her to be. but at the same time, she was very much joan of arc. when they told her to shut up and go along with the truth, or self-confidence really comes through. where she got that from, i don't know. but she shows that throughout. she said i think it was just the confidence of youth is someone my age. at 17 years old, but she seemed not to be afraid of anything. i think she thought she was invincible, not communicated itself to people around her. she gives them a lot of fiction in parts of the film which has made her into a don't mess with joan of arc kind of figure, which i found out a lot.

people are not necessarily happy with my interpretation. because i wanted to situate her as the girl growing up in the 15th century. it changed france. the largest thing is that she is part of a big part of women in history. history starts out with women's with no rights are we know that -- i think one of the things that it tells me is that at times in history, there were places for very strong women, in this case, a strong girl, to operate and have a really strong effect on historical events. i think it's a good corrective to what we tend to assume about the middle ages. >> coverage of her recent visit

to augusta, maine, continues here on booktv. >> my name is richard benjamin, i am director of the special collections about in college. what i have chosen for you today are some selections from her general oliver otis howard collection. it was one of the largest and most heavily used in the department. the reason that is so is that howard's career document so many periods of american history you can have people who are interested in the indian wars in the west were interested in the civil war or interested in race relations, all coming to vote in college. these are highly used resource papers for people's research. first off, he was about an alumnus. class of 1850.

he was in charge of indian affairs and part of university that existed in tennessee. he had such a large part in forming those institutes. he was on the board of trustees for years and years. he served as president in lincoln memorial university at different times of his life. he had service in the civil war and had a distinguished career in lots of different ways. here are some images up in overtime. early on, he is a general, he stayed with the union continentals. some older ones, including this

rendition of him that reduces him to simple elements, but provides for a grand portrait at the same time. a photograph here and with chief joseph, he of the northwest where he was involved in indian wars and the relocation of tribe members to the reservation. a rather in periods howard, he had his right arm amputated after the civil war. and here is one of him as a father, his grandsons and sons follow them into military service, this is very late in life for him. finally, and ultimately, a group shot that shows him right there, along with all the great men of the time who formed the board

for bowdoin college. the chamberlain who also, to civil war service, was shown in this picture. he is right there. so those are the two gentlemen. chamberlain and howard were two years apart. chamberlain was class of 52, howard was class of 50. he did share a dorm, but not a dorm room. so we really don't know too much in the early years about whether they were friendly. certainly, later in life, they were. finally, a picture of howard along with other distinguished alums, including chief justice [inaudible name], next to howard, who is also here at bowdoin. this is a nice, gentle motion of the late 19th century. social life in a small town in

maine. this is a letter from christmas morning, 1861, howard at the time was in camp california, which is out of the outset of washington dc. he was probably it for five years old at the time. it is a great letter showing a civil war officer trying to be a father. the tone is very paternal, but not in an unenlightened way. we are trying to figure out the social history and what camp life was like, what you were doing when they weren't shooting at each other. these letters to home, they are really great resources in that regard.

this one shows a template to build chimney on it. people really don't associate it together, but they happen all the time. next to that is a picture of the general himself and the other children and family. and then who is this? of course, this is his mother. this is in 1861, and then, in 1862 in the month of june, he is at fair oaks and he gets shot. something penetrates his right elbow and he has to have it amputated. so this is a set of letters and documents the document that event. one of them was a letter written

to him from his brother who was in the date of maine at the time, merlin howard, saying that i wish i could be with you. this is not good news, blah, blah, blah. but it is an indication of how quickly news can travel. this is within days of howard being injured. and letters from home came expressing condolences and concern. this is the transcription of the telegraph that was sent to inform the howard family that he had been injured and wounded -- it was written from home, he is well enough to want to write.

he didn't have any choices other than not. later he was awarded the medal of honor for service affairs. he has figured out how to write with his left hand, least it is a legible letter now. and this is a great letter for a couple of reasons. one of them is that he talks about -- he hasn't accounted at this point in anticipation of sherman's march. and he writes about how he should be working, the kids should be doing well in school, they don't know how to read or write, they have to write within certain marks, he shows them just what it is like to have his name written, and then there are

examples. he is talking about the limits of tennessee, later in his career, in the 1890s, he is fundamental in establishing his university. there is a need for education in tennessee, and the other one is that there is a need in the south. and so howard puts those two sentiments together, and then shows that he is present in the 1890s. howard, theoretically, if not actually, would be cheating against in a few years time. he is the secretary and this is hell it is commissioned.

he was a commissioned officer after being a student. after the civil war, he was appointed to the board. at this time howard is president of the university. he had positions in the late 60s, 1870s, and he had been a father of howard university. he and others in a congregational church in washington dc, said about right outside the civil war and how they could provide help and a variety of disadvantaged in the

dc area. they initially established what was a seminary, and not very quickly morphed into the university. in indian affairs, he would probably not be considered a progressive. putting him on a reservation would be okay with him. but in terms of his treatment of blacks and involvement with blacks, he is also called the christian general, because depending on the perspective, he was either very callous or very righteous. there are also suggestions that he was preaching and maybe not the easiest situation. what he really wanted to do was have a cigarette and a turn. that or piety, depending on how you look at it, carries on throughout life. he is also because of this, seen

in a better sense. the first blacks were actually reticulated at west point. he digresses into a very bitter set of paragraphs talking about christians and not the best people to criticize for how they treat their brothers. >> later in life, he wrote speeches and articles and other addresses. i just pulled out one that we

have here, so he is ruminating and reminiscing, and writing about what the role of women was during the civil war. nursing wounded or providing morale. it references people who are -- women who have gone to the front lines and their husbands were injured and taken care of there, and it comes right down the middle, people who are sort of stuck in the middle. it could also be a story of one howard introduces his own being visited by another general.

the joke is we could go clothes shopping together. there is some humor in it, but it's a pretty tough time here. >> adesso, maine, the capital is home to vote in college, colby college, bates college, the university of maine, odessa. tv explored literary culture on a recent visit with the help of our partner, time warner cable. >> the book is "lincoln's forgotten ally: judge advocate general joseph holt of kentucky", judge joseph holds, and the author, elizabeth leonard.

>> he served as the secretary of war, he was the secretary of war during the winter. in 1862, after lincoln had become president, about a year and a half, it means that he was the head of military justice and oversaw all of the court-martials and military commissions. he served in 1857 until 1875, he was very important during the

civil war, his role as judge advocate general was extremely important. it was time that somebody brought the story to life. >> what did you learn about him? through the process, what did you learn about him the most interested you? >> well, i knew from very early on in my acquaintance with judge holds, as a historical figure,

the more i studied him, the more i found that he was even more complicated than i had realized. he was a very wise, thoughtful, prickly, challenging figure that was both powerfully loved and hated, and even i came to forgive him for the reasons that i was initially so angered him about. i am very aware of the complexity of the character. that was the thing is i found with my research. the profound way in which he touched the lives. >> and what he think about?

>> he grew up in a family that with confederate, except for his one ants. she was a loyal unionists. so by making the choice to serve the union, initially, as james buchanan, secretary of war, and not support and working as lincoln's judge advocate general, and even before that, served very faithfully as lincoln's agent to try to keep kentucky from succeeding, he made choices that damaged his relationships with almost everybody that e-mail and everybody that he loved the first half of his life. that was very interesting to me. >> you really exposed his strengths and weaknesses. >> that's right. >> what were his strengths?

what were his weakness is? >> well, among his strengths, i would include his enormous intelligence, he was very learned, he was very bright. his family had recognized his intelligence from early on in his life and positioned him as a member of the family or his generation that would go forth on the family. he was very committed, once he made a decision, he stuck with it decision. he was very loyal. he was very determined. those are the kind of strength that he had were among his strengths. his weaknesses were sometimes related to his strengths. people remember most about him, prosecution of the lincoln assassination. he was determined to punish them he was determined to punish them

and he pursued some very badly in order to do that and make some decisions about witnesses that were not very smart. but that reflected his determination to avenge lincoln's death. so it's much as he was, strong and determined and committed, he sometimes could go too far and i would say one of his biggest weaknesses was forgiving people. even those people close to him at one point when they felt that he had maine ties end he was a very sensitive person. >> super people who have seen this, the depiction and not.

>> well, i think the people did a wonderful job returning the character. it is not the joseph holt that i know, but i am delighted. the character is much less law-abiding and much more manipulative and vicious than the joseph holt that i know. and also underhanded. i think one of the things that the film tries to suggest that the federal government largely been the person of joseph holt, basically railroaded for mary sherard to her death, and without any interest in what the truth was.

they determined that she should hang regardless. and they went after her. there was no deal to make sure she was convicted and so forth. so it makes him into a truly vengeful, three-dimensional character that is really not like what he is right now. not during the lincoln administration and afterwards, it must've been an incredibly difficult job. could you expand upon what that job was before and the job that he ended up with? >> the job was basically there was one person who had a small office who kept track of whatever sorts of military offenses occurred in an army that was 16,000 people strong. right of prior to the war. during the civil war, the army expanded to 3 million people. 2.5 million people.

this meant that the amount of casework that he had to oversee was extraordinary. he also was given responsibility for pursuing civilians who were engaged in disloyal acts, behavior and so on. he did not serve on every case himself very honestly, a lot of court-martials were in the field. it was his responsibility to make sure that as justice, to make sure his majesty could that justice was prevailing in these cases and punishment was being, you know, ferret it out and the people's rights were being protected. it was a massive assignment that went way past the end of the war. he stayed in that position until 1875. it's a radically expanded. and we also have a role in that position of making law. so much law about war, that it

didn't even exist because this is a war the likes of which the united states had never seen. many, many policies about how the war should be conducted, he could be very influential there. he also was responsible to a great extent for making sure that the presidents policies were supported and that people follow his policies, not the least of which was emancipation. he had an enormous responsible child of work constantly. >> so many passages of your book really eliminate those relationships. >> that is correct. >> can you talk about that relationship? >> yes, my sons of their relationship must have been extremely cordial. extremely and mutually respectful, many people have asked me over the years did he ever meet president lincoln at

all and what kind of contact that they had? they met often and for many hours at a time. any capital case had to be discussed with the president and the president must sign off on it. and there were a lot of those cases that came across his desk. they could set this to seven hours together and talk about. lincoln hand-picked him. there were people who would've recommended him, but lincoln chosen and appointed him to be the judge advocate general. i think that lincoln knew of him beforehand. i know that he did. and she respected him and knew he was the right man for the job. the only thing allowed to that is that i think that if you could argue that they are dynamic was invariably good. but lincoln was much more

inclined to pardon if he could end joseph holt was tougher. they agreed. they agreed something like 80% of the time. but if there was a choice, it was most likely lincoln. >> so he supported the president? >> yes, and he loved him. >> okay. well, i think that he probably thought that lincoln was a little bit stingy on some things related to military law. i think that he probably like, stanton, i think you wish he was more into protection. one of the things that joseph holt said at the end of his assignment as buchanan secretary of war was to make sure that lincoln got into washington and was inaugurated safely.

and he carried the pride of having overseen not throughout the war. and having spent many hours and days and weeks trying to find where the traders were in the north who the northerners knew that the south was at all with them. he was very devoted lincoln, and i think when lincoln was assassinated, i can't even imagine how devastating it would've been for him. especially looking back four years and knowing that he, himself, had been so instrumental in making sure that lincoln was at the start of the presidency. >> you think that personal relationship towards lincoln potentially should have [inaudible] >> i think it was why he became so obsessed.

certainly. but i think that there are signs of his determination to punish the leadership of the confederacy throughout the war. before the assassination, you can find him talking about the way traders should be handled, he never blamed the common people. he never blamed the people who were misled. by these terrible leaders who were seeking their own power and so forth. but he was quite angry at all of the leadership people. people like jefferson davis and he had known one he was in buchanan's administration and when davis was a senator, his own brother-in-law, david dooley, the senator from florida, who had left congress in the early part of the 1860s. he already was enraged. but i think that his devotion to

lincoln and his affection for him would certainly have contributed to him making some bad judgment calls as he moves through moved through the trial. although many people said that he conducted an extremely fair trial. during the time that the trial was underway. after the fact, i think there was a lot of shock that mary was actually executed. prior to that, there was actually execution that was shocking to the people. it is at that point that the combination of the combination behavior at of the trial really began to take effect. >> after reading some of the

books, i see that [inaudible] wisdom of a huge area in the process? >> oh, absolutely. president bush made that connection explicitly, he connected himself, he made the parallel with lincoln and the need to suppress civil liberties in order to protect the nation. >> where does he go about on our? >> usa workplaces exists that civil liberties need to be oppressed. in doing so, it tends to be easier for people to look at joseph holt and say what a wicked and oppressive men that he was, and forget that these were lincoln's own policies. lincoln named him judge advocate general in 1862 and signed the writ of habeas corpus that same month. so it was only two or three weeks after lincoln appointed holt said he suspended the writ of habeas corpus and initiated the emancipation proclamation he would have put them in a

position if he was not expected to follow through on those policies. and so he was doing his work. but it's a lot easier to get mad at him because he didn't become a martyr in a way that lincoln was. >> wasn't an issue as it is now? >> absolutely. there were many complaints, and lincoln had a famous dispute with the chief justice of the supreme court. justice tommy about the suppression of civil liberties. but lincoln's response was should i protect one law in order to watch the entire nation glass? protect it to that extent that they destroy the nation -- and what have you done? >> you mention he is from kentucky. and from a slave owning family.

>> yes, a tiny town on the ohio river. how did he make that transition and his family not make that transition and have it be an impact on him personally? remarked that is a really good question. in fact, as i think about where i would like to go in my future research. that is one of the things that would really love to understand better. he came from a family that had a certain set of values. he loved his family and he was very close to his family. but he was lifted up out of his family and sent to get an education, something that no one else in his family guy. he didn't have anybody else who went as far as he did in terms of his education. going out into the world the way that he did -- he was lifted up to become this very important

figure, and these trips were very influential for him. he traveled around the world. he saw the importance or understood the importance of the american republican system in a way that he might not have had he not travel and so on. but there are many questions, particularly, i think, without transition to becoming such an adamant emancipation is that i think are still somewhat mysterious. i think we can explain some of his support for the union and having traveled more having gone outside the unit, having the education of members of his family had not had. we're that anti-slavery kernel started in him -- that is a mystery to me. that can be traced back to his

teenagers. i cite a speech that he gave when he was about 17 years old. where he spoke very harshly about slavery. i don't quite understand where that came from. later in his life, while he was still a young man and living in kentucky and parts of mississippi, there were letters from his uncle while he was committed to slavery, letters from his uncle will never the less suggest that they suspected that he would someday become an abolitionist be -- because it they just saw them going down that path. ..

>> there are so many books that have been written about lincoln and the civil war. how do you go about writing a book like this? what is your process? >> for me the beginning is once i have something that's interesting to me very myself in the archives, and i spent years years in smaller chunks of time in the archives and the national library of congress and even going to kentucky, so i am

pursuing the primary sources, and i also in the case of this book had the amazing good fortune of meeting descendants of one of his brothers, and those people became significant contributors based on the war that had come down for their family about him and the material said they still had that was related and they had some of the letters he had written to his niece and nephew, so for me it is the primary source just immersing myself in those and then beginning to try to sort through it and create some sort of narrative but historians are always in the business of putting puzzles together and making sense out of chaos is a very complicated process and i know i've been asked whether i would be interested in doing a biography

of benjamin butler because he is a colby graduate, and he was a very important civil war general and a very complicated figure as well. i thought about it, but i'm not sure how many biographies a person can do in their lifetime. it takes a lot of getting to know somebody. i live with joseph holtz in my head for a long time. >> for some writers going to a place where something happened and sort of connecting back is important. >> absolutely i went because i came when i first was introduced to him early on in the civil war but wrote a book about the focus primarily on the assassination and its aftermath and i went to all kinds of places around washington and so on and i stayed in a hotel next to their house and so i went to a lot of

places relative to the assassination and as i studied his life more fully and went to kentucky to see his old family mansion and went to the places he had gone to school, some of the remnants of those things. i've been to places they are completely gone. he had a beautiful mansion in washington that's completely gone, too but i've been to those places and then stevens port where his grave is and visited the broken-down old mansion. there's an interesting thing about holt that as much as he left kentucky and his family values behind, when he died he wanted to go back and there was some reconciliation with some small branch of the family which happens to be the branch whose

contemporary people i know and somehow that did bring them back to kentucky where his parents used to live and where he was raised. >> in your book you write about him being dispatched to the west and one of the reviews of the book shows one of the new things you find out is about the perspective on emancipation in kentucky. what is there that's new on that topic? >> the border states in general have been pretty much neglected. that is kind of new ground. the old ground and civil war history there's always new ground and the complexity of the border states is something that's being examined a lot. it can kentucky state in the unit must have been a pro emancipation state.

the state in the union for the sake of the union and it created a lot of conflict in kentucky between those who and those who like poult believe the union must be preserved and nothing not even slavery should be allowed to be destroyed. he was at the front end of the people who wanted to preserve the union in the slavery and actually he was more active in favor of a means of putting them at this point. it wasn't just a concession. but there were many antiemancipation in kentucky and some people have said is a post war confederate state who doesn't -- kentucky can not ratify the 13th amendment to the

constitution until 1975. 1975. they didn't have to because law of the land after two-thirds of the state ratified and came into the law that kentucky held out until the 20th century, the late 20th century. it is emancipated slave so that is pretty impressive. >> all that as a backdrop why has lincoln forgotten? >> i think part of it is because of the nature of kentucky's post war history. if he was a union man in a state which really somewhat angry at the direction and the union policy and there's not much to celebrate about holt and if you didn't like demons of patient so

kentucky wouldn't be inclined to celebrate and perhaps the union in the state. he was also an intensely private person. someone who never sought to the electoral so he didn't do a lot of promotion himself. although he lived a very long life, he lived until the late 1800's and 89 before, but he retreated especially in the last 20 years of life and pretty much a private world, and i also think that soon after the war was over, very soon after the war was over, much of the nation was guided by or inspired by a desire for the reconciliation among whites. too bad for anybody else. and holton didn't represent that point of view.

he was distressed at the rapidity with which the nation was unified and the former slaves welfare was abandoned and so he was a country in and didn't have a place in that narrative was being created after the war and the police being celebrated in the way that the narrative was being developed after the war. so he retreated and he was quite bitter at the end but he sort of retreated to his private world and tried to reconstruct some relationships with family members of his own generation and his nephew and his knees in particular, and he clung on to his good friends in his life and didn't do anything to sort of keep himself in the public eye. estimate to have won the very prestigious lincoln prize.

has it changed anything? >> well, it is certainly a source of enormous pride, and there is a sense in which you can feel very good and proud of your own work and confident in its value without getting outside accolades, but it doesn't hurt to get them and it's very reassuring. although i feel that i had respect in my profession not just cold be brought in the larger world of the civil war history, i feel it has given people the reason to take me more seriously, not that i felt they didn't take me seriously before, but it's -- it puts a little bounce in your step. >> for the folks watching this that haven't read the book yet,

what do you want to leave them with? >> i think it is a great human story. if you just want to radiography of assassinating a human being if you write biographies it is a great human story pity if you want to -- if you like to study the civil war but few are eager to learn something if you didn't know, i can assure you this is a great place to go because there are very few people who know much about, more now than before, but i think it's -- i think that he's a very important figure to know, and i think that it will open up all kinds of areas of study just nothing more sweating that he is a very compelling figure for the civil war in the easiest way not learn something new. >> thank you very much for spending time with us.

>> thank you. on our recent visit to augusta booktv spoke with to the surprise winning journalist barbara walsh. up next she talks about her book august gale. >> it's a story of two storms. one is about a hurricane that roared up the coast in 1935 and headed straight for newfoundland where my ancestors lived in this fishing village, and during that time period these men sailed and 15 ft stories that for 50 to 60 feet. they had no warning of this def allows they called it as it came up the coast and this fishing village where my grandfather was born, 300 people on the south side of town lost their children in the community that lost their father, so it was designated to them and the other part was my

grandfather. he moved to s.i. and later abandoned my father, my nana and my uncle. i never knew anything about them because my father refused to talk about them. the book alternates between the store 1935 and my grandfather who created his own storms. i wrote this book because after i saw the movie quote code a perfect storm" i saw that movie and it resonated with me. i am irish and connected to the water and i just sat there after being a journalist for 30 years i said i can do that, and two years later when i talked to my father and i said i want to write books and he said what kind? and i said sort of like the perfect storm. he said you have a story like that in your family and then he starts telling me about this august gale that killed several of our ancestors in this tiny newfoundlander village and was his great uncle was lost to the

wheel and many of them died and i was like wow that's a great story and then he tells me another piece about my grandfather, the man i never knew where the time had integrated s.i. and a few days after the gale a newspaper swirling around his feet so he picks up the headline and he reads 48 newfoundland fishermen killed in august gale. he knows all of his family is out in that storm and he just loses it and becomes hysterical. so my father tells me these two pieces and then he says maybe we can get in touch with family. and i'm thinking family? i never knew anything about lambros because he abandoned my dad, and my dad refused to talk about him. so on this night in my home in maine, i dreamed of giant waves and a grandfather i never met, and that began research into the august gale. and i spent nine years off and on because i worked for them as

a journalist researching my dad and i and my sister traveled to newfoundland tointerview these survivors, people who lost their dad in the storm. we interviewed people but remember the gale and what it did in the communities of the research was incredible because the priest is going from door to door to tell all these families you've lost a son, you've lost a husband, you've lost three sons and one husband. it's a natural disaster that took all of their fathers away and the other piece i've never seen a picture of him, and my father was very ambivalent about going to newfoundland. data, we need to research the storm. as we approached the rock, newfoundland as it is called because it is just mccuish terse

grapes in the island, i looked out and i was just overwhelmed at the notion of coming to this island where my ancestors had lived and my grandfather was born. i turned to my dad and i said if you think not in a million years, and i was terrified because i thought what is the screen to be like for him? is it going to be emotional? and there was in part. we were meeting people that kept saying your father was a great man, and my dad would say he deserted us, so it was kind of a mixture of emotion, the good piece we interviewed so many of these men and women who remembered that storm and remembered the night it came and many of them saw spirits. they were all very irish, the newfoundlanders. they come over from ireland so they are superstitious the might of the gale many of them saw their fathers who returned to

their homes, so it was a very interesting story to interview them and then interview some of the fishermen that were out in the gale and as these waves rose from 40 to 60 feet they retired and they were just praying let us get home and a few of them did. many of them did not. succumb it was just a story that resonated because of my irish background the families were so grateful because no one had told the story for them and now this book has brought me together with my newfoundland family that i never knew existed, and often many of these people -- they are all cousins. it was also fascinating to learn about my great uncle. he was a legendary fishermen and he never lost a man in 25 years. he was fearless.

many of the irish catholic fishermen would go to see and if the waves would rise they would throw this into the sea and shout to god in the mill of the store i am not afraid of you. we are all going to die but he was bringing home the most people couldn't believe patty didn't make it home and during the storm the all feared the august hurricane because i was the start of the hurricane season and the night before patty set sail, his wife lillian said please, don't go because not only was patty going to see he was taking his 12-year-old son, his 14-year-old son jerome and patti's oldest son james so during the storm, patty is out

at the sea with his three sons and this is all true. patty was last seen as the waves are rising and another skipper says what are you doing? there's a devil coming and she says i know what we have to straight nouri. he knows his son is on board and his oldest son james was captain in the schooner for the first time since it is an incredible scene and the research i was fortunate that many people had memories and witnessed certain parts of the storm and could help me recreate for having seen the priest who had to knock on all of these doors and let the families know your father isn't coming home, so it was an incredible piece of history because as a journalist i

interviewed many different people for stories, but this was my family. this was probably the hardest story that i've ever written about because i was related to everyone, not only the newfoundlanders that died in the storm, but my grandfather and one of the toughest pieces -- i didn't want to tell the story of my grandfather. i wanted to tell the story about the storm because that was compelling and my grandfather was digging up too much pain in my father's childhood. sola originally i said i'm not going to tell that part of the story. but it was like my grandfather was pushing his way in and finally i said dad, i have to tell lambros's story, too, and he said okay i trust you. and it's funny because a lot of the people that read it will say ambros was a bastard and i say no, he made some bad choices. he wasn't a bad man. and it's interesting after i won

the pulitzer for the historian, my newspaper, we won the pulitzer, he knew about that. my nanny used to write to him and he said i wonder if my journalist granddaughter will come find me, and i did. only many years later after he had died. so i feel like i had gotten to know my grandfather, and there were good things about him. he never deserted his second family. he was a hired worker during the war. he worked in brooklyn helping to repair the victory ships and so he was a high worker many times and he loved his children. he kept the picture of my father and my kunkel when they were young and his wallet. he had paintings of them in his closet and the second family would say who are they? he could never talk about it. they were thus believe covers the leader in life they learned about but i think that he always regretted what he did. >> why did he leave? >> he met another woman and got

her pregnant and so in the middle of the night in brooklyn he packed up this baby and snuck out his house and left my father who was at the time 11 and my on goal was about a year and mine and i closed the door and stole her car and a thousand dollars from paint job he would never do and drove away with his mistress and this baby was just born, and then made his way to san francisco and then decided i miss my family and called them out again only to leave them again and get a master's pregnant again and she had a nervous breakdown comes about was the part my father could not forgive. why did you call less out to san francisco and the book too there's been healing for my father. he wouldn't talk about him so this book suddenly my father's

story is out there and i think it's been good for him. the story of forgiveness, the story of the sea, of realizing when they were fighting the storm at the sea it is as the time goes by there is a fisherman but i think these people, the historical piece is a difficult time to read it they barely survived. they were so hard working. they just never gave up. the women would raise their children in a much simpler way. they had gardens, and so i think for me it is the courage and the integrity of these people that we can all learn from. they worked very hard to survive, and a lot of times they lost the men and they still had to carry on and the government

was not there to help them so there are a lot of people that say the government helps too much. these people survived on their own. they are very hard working. and i think to the family that connection to the family -- the newfoundlanders family means more than anything to them and i think that is such a great, you know, value, my father despite being abandoned he always said to us there is nothing more important than family, and i think that's because he knew his father abandoned him and the newfoundlanders. if you are because then they can't do enough for you. so for mechem the peace as well there is nothing more important than family. and i learned that through this book in many ways. >> now we explore lesser known history on book tv. we travel just outside augusta to waterville maine where we sat down with rafah yell scheck

which describes a group of black soldiers massacred by the british military in 1940. >> this book is about massacres of black french soldiers so these were soldiers that had been drafted by the french army in africa mostly sub-saharan africa, senegal, mali and the countries in that region and they were brought to france in 1959 and 1940 against the german army. when the german army captured the soldiers and made them prisoner many officers ordered that they be executed and massacred right upon capture and i estimate that around 3,000 of them were killed after capturing and many more were killed on the way to the p.o.w. camp so they were treated in a quite harmed

way. the motivation for this was racism and what's important in the context is the german campaign in france is so often portrayed as a campaign where there is not yet that racism that played out on the eastern front towards the russians coming towards the polls already early on and my but wanted to show that the nazi regime was indoctrinating the german people and the german army already during the french campaign and this led to the massacres of black soldiers. before the massacres happened there was a campaign in the german media and this campaign was ordered by hitler personally because he said that after the

first successor in that campaign the british were beaten and were leading london. hitler felt that the german soldiers did not hate the french enough so how do you get a german soldier to hit the french market's? propaganda minister makes a lot of noise about the african soldiers and the french army depict them as men mutilating savages and it worked very centrally at this time so off the phone with hitler immediately gave the orders and the next day articles kept appearing about the savage african soldiers who were cut into pieces, prisoners in france, they're basically german propaganda teams who went into the camps and to have

instructions in the archive to go and look for animalistic teams, so the soldiers, prisoners, while they were doing things that animals =to so the camera teams zoomed in on the soldiers that were eating raw meat because they were starving in the camps were the supply chain this terrible so the camera teams filmed the black prisoners and sometimes not african prisoners tearing apart rall -- raw cows and eating the meat. they did this book for many months after the prisoners were first brought to germany before everybody bought hitler's order that they pursued to be kept in france and there were propaganda teams that went into the p.o.w. camps in germany and often they

told them dance. many of these african soldiers came from very different regions in africa. you're supposed to dance like we do? we are not we, we are from a different area and dance differently so they started dancing under pressure and the camera teams from the this and if you watch them today we might think well it's just a bunch of black men in french uniforms dancing but the way they were presented to the german audience at the time was basically to underscore that these soldiers from africa are primitive and they're dancing primitive and the thing in ways that are more of an animal than a human, and this went so far that the official nazi