near you. the book is a chain of thunder. this is a little over one hour. >> i wanted to talk about this. this is part of the story. it is a story that is so important that many of us don't know. but i need to start out talking

about something that i have always mentioned whenever i am doing an event like this. but i'm quite sure that at least some of you have some interest in the civil war for one reason or another. because of this, many years ago, you read a book called the killer angels. every time i say that, i see people that nod their head. if you have never heard of it, that is okay, it is not required. it is the story is told to you we are talking about people like

james and these people made these decisions. my father took me there to the battlefield, put it in our heads and told you the story the way that they would tell it. every university, every major university history department has the civil war guy, there there's the british guy, the roman guy, the experts. the florida state university had the civil war guy. this guy said my father that, who are you to tell us what robert lee was thinking?

in a telegram comes to cialis, congratulations. the killer angels has been awarded the pulitzer prize description when you think about that, any author has the right to believe that his ship has come in. anything he wants to do from now on is going to be sought after. they are going to be publishers fighting over his work. this is what happens. think about 1975. the end of the vietnam war. nobody in this country wanted to read a book about generals. it is about as unpopular a subject as possible.

my father is a master of bad timing. and unless you were in the military, we have command and staff in any other military academies. it is required reading. we have raised millions of dollars to put that book on the screen. for the first time, the killer angels became a "new york times" best seller. nineteen years after this and for four weeks it was number one on "the new york times" bestseller list.

this includes telling the story the same way. that is not modesty. i have never written anything before i was a businessman in tampa. i thought about it and thought that this was something that i might try to do. but then some different people like stonewall jackson, a fabulous character, i had fun with that. then someone else would adapt for a screenplay. so people ask me about this.

if i'm going to do this, i need to do this kind of research the best i can. that we talked about the fact that whatever i come up with is lousy. up up up up it is called gods and generals, it is the prequel. and they said, do you want to send us a manuscript. and it's like, okay.

the phone call that i got is that we don't care it is a movie. here's a contract. >> that is not an exaggeration. that is the truth. thirteen books later, it definitely changed my whole life. but the point of those stories, the magic of the killer angels, what my father dead if did as he was able to take you with him back to a time where you could see the story in a way you have never seen it before. you don't get that from a modern biography or history book. that story is telling you the facts and figures. getting the story straight, hopefully. what i began to hear when i was talking about those books, different sources going back to the mexican war. it's amazing how many people didn't know that there was a mexican war.

the key is who took part in all of these generals from the 1860s , they were all young and untrained young lieutenant right out of west point. some of them are clueless and that is a good story. going back to the american revolution with john and abigail adams and george washington and you learn all about in school. but the story is when i had fun and i hit the ground running with this. really getting into the heads of the characters. you know who they are. you know what it was like for benjamin franklin when he seduces the british coming to our side. the british were willing. they are the finest army may be in the world. they were defeating us until the

french came in and joined us. the french bailed us out and enabled us to win it. that is a story that many of us don't know. people say to me that i didn't know that. that is fun, what story do you know how many movies have been made about world war ii? hundreds and hundreds. sergeant york, that is about it.

many people don't know about the drill or the red baron. he is not just a cartoon character. maybe you have heard of this, bellwood. i bet you don't know how this saves paris and this was responsible for the germans ending the war. i mean, that is how close it was. i can find these characters, if i can find a store you don't know, i get excited about that. hopefully gets you excited as well.

i began to find things it is what happens. many people wrote to me and said, you know, i didn't want to like him. but i couldn't help it. he is a good character. we are getting older as well

now, mashes not really about a career in awe now, what about the reservoir? what about the stories that are important to a great many americans, particularly those who were there. what about the story of two men and a gardener.

it was called the subsequent tenniel of the civil war, the 150th anniversary. i'm talking to my publisher and they are saying, you know, we should probably take another look at this. and i thought, well, i have sort of done this stuff in the east. i can't tell you how many letters i have gone from people in mississippi and tennessee who have said, you know, we are kind of tired of hearing about robert e. lee. there's a lot of stuff that goes on west of the appalachian mountains and nobody ever talks about. and they are absolutely right. and i'm looking into that a little bit. it is not just the event, but it is the characters. one character jumped out of me and i realized that i can throw this name out to you with some hesitation. i was in atlanta last night. they booed about this. well, you know that's how it goes.

[laughter] i had heard he heard the story and what he did is one thing he is an interesting character and makes for a good story. i don't try to gloss that over, not at all. he understands what total war is. a lot of people in the 1860s still thought of war in other ways. that you stood up with armor and you had all of that stuff that had gone on for hundreds of years. sherman was right, it has changed. well, the idea of using him as a character through this series is very interesting. because he is in a lot of places that are very important during the civil war. the first one of those was shiloh. the book that came out last year deals with the rattle of shiloh. and it comes out in the 50th

year of the event or, more or less, last year was shiloh. 1862. when i got into the research i was surprised and then the other character is a pivotal voice there. ..

by the way that happens to be close friends with a jefferson davis, highly likely and proper that that demand would instead have gone to johnston and we never would have heard of robert is the. and there was a fifth side to that. at the time of johnson's death at shiloh on april 6th 1862 at about 3:00 in the afternoon his army is winning the battle. they are carrying the day, and what he is trying to do is get his army between grant's army in the tennessee river where grants basis. if you can cut the mafia is nowhere to go. he will either destroy the army or they will have to surrender. enormous victory for the confederacy if it happens that way.

had it happened we never would have heard of ulysses grant. that would have been the end of his career, and rare talking about the 18th president of the united states. that is the way history changes sometimes by a neck of a piece of lead in the back of albert sidney johnston sneak that clips and artery and the bleeds to death without even knowing his dying. and a simple tourniquet would have saved his life. he had one in his pocket. they did not know. that's the kind of story. that is not what you usually hear about the battle of shiloh, not about what regiment was in what patch of woods. this is about the people. the of the part of this, and this carries forward in the vicksburg book as well. when i get to world war one, the 20th century, up until that point all of these books to my father's books had been told from the top down

, the generals, you know, the head guys. when you get to the 20th century it does not work anymore one of the things, one of the problems with albert sidney johnston, one of the reasons he is killed at shiloh, one of the final breed of people, the generals to leave from the front , not a good idea. by world war one the generals had figured that out and realized it was not a good idea to leave from the front. abstain back there. so the problem with that from a story telling point of view, you cannot tell the story from the top down. generals are 10 miles behind the lines. you need that guy who is out front. who is it? it is the kid, the 19-year-old kid with the infield of the springfield with a musket or the m1. does the story the need to tell. so i got into the 20th century. it was very important to find that character and not just the general. i liked that a lot.

and so going back to the civil war i did not just go back to the generals again. i found a kid, a private who in this 16th wisconsin regiment, and his buddies and what they go through and shiloh. in the carries forward to vicksburg into vicksburg story. and the vicksburg story and, you know, the book is called a chain of thunder. it just cannot make 21st. this book really surprised me for couple of reasons. i knew the history of vicksburg, but a lot of people don't. they're is a reason for that. the reason is boeing to be illustrated this year more graphically than in any time in recent memory, because it is the 150th anniversary. it is also the 150th anniversary of the battle of gettysburg. the reason that is significant, that to happen at the same time. well, today we call them media

centers, but even in 1863 where was gettysburg? it is within 100 miles of washington d.c. in philadelphia and baltimore and not that much further from richmond. that is where all the reporters are, all of the photographers go to gettysburg. vicksburg is in the middle of nowhere, with all their respect. think about 1863 and is the middle of nowhere. and so there are not hordes of newspaper reporters and hordes of photographers, so lynn out on the confederate side. so it gets overlooked. you know, gettysburg is this huge news event. expert -- and you can make the argument that what happens at the expert, by opening of the mississippi river for the union, that is far more important to the water than what happens at gettysburg. you can debate that, and i have heard debates up that, tiresome debates about that, but the point is it is important, and it

is really not only severing the confederacy in to to but suddenly texas, arkansas, most of louisiana is cut away. you cannot get there anymore. and so all the supplies come all the food, all the manpower that was coming from the trans mississippi to the confederacy coming east stops. it does not happen anymore. they cannot cross the river. the new controls the river. the other thing is the expert is a rail hub. the railroad coming from the east stops at the river at vicksburg, and from there from points west things go back and forth. that stops because now the union army controls the railroad. the cut off. you cannot underestimate the power of rivers and railroads during the civil war. they did not have adjusted highways. it did not have trucks. rivers and railroads. the union army, by capturing vicksburg, stops all of that

from that whole part of the country. the other part of this is now the mississippi river is wide open for the union army to use, the navy to use to transport material, man, food, equipment, whenever they needed to the south. very definitely it is the beginning of the end for the confederacy. a lot of people in the confederacy know this and there are some quotes in the book to that effect. but that is the history lesson. when i got into the characters, and you have people like john pemberton. now, he is not common to most of federates, favorite sun. in fact, he's not a sign at all because he is from pennsylvania. that is a little irony there because a lot of the soldiers, the confederate soldiers who served under john pemberton at vicksburg are not very happy about the fact that this guy is from pennsylvania. he marries a woman from virginia, which is why he pledges allegiance to the confederacy, but there is an

awful lot of suspicion before, during, and after the fall of vicksburg that that was really sort of the plan all along, that pemberton really was going to sell us out. now, there is no evidence that that was the case at all. i believe he was an honorable man. adjustable he was a very competent general, and there are lots of examples of that. i have a question. people ask me, you know, what was his problem? well, i tell you one thing. he was a micro manager. the problem is, when you are my co-manager, you have to micromanage, that means you're managing every detail. he would forget some details at the expense of others. a great example, he gets into a fight with the local farmers because in the confederate army the rules are, when we buy corn from new, you shall the corn and deliver to us in bags as lose kernels of corn, not ears of corn. we don't want years of corn.

now, as silly as that sounds, it's a big fight that he has with the local farmers. so the warehouses in vicksburg to not have corn. he could have filled them up. he didn't. one example. on and on and on. they're is a lot of that. shovels. the engineers, the confederate engineers who are -- of marvelous character. this is the man responsible for the earthworks and the fortifications at vicksburg. he tells general pemberton, and the shovels, lots of shovels. pemberton forgets about that, literally forgets, ignores it. so he's out there trying to dig these earthworks and they have to duchesse because they don't have enough shuffles to go around. little things like that. what is it? the mail is lost and so forth. the whole war is lost. a real good a example of what shakespeare was talking about. now, that is one person in this

book. joseph johnston, another confederate, primary competitors character in this story, joseph johnston, if you know the history, you have that johnson is here in jackson, defense jackson when the union troops come across mississippi, but then he decides not to engage his sleeves. he withdraws and has the city of jackson to grant and sherman and the other confederate -- the other union officers. what do they do? they come in to burn anything of military value. and when you have a town made primarily of wood and he picked this building to burn and there are 15 buildings around it all made of wood, you know, you know more than anyone one knows what happens. jackson is -- becomes a city of chimney's because most of it does burn. ulysses grant, again, love him

or hate him, despite sherman, love him or hate him, you have to understand what grant accomplishes in his capture of vicksburg. we credit the germans, world war ii, with the tactic known as the blitzkrieg. lightning warfare. i think the germans invented that. well, it was invented by ulysses grant in 1863 because that is what he does across the state of mississippi. when he finally crosses the river into mississippi, the grand gulf and comes through and then jackson and then back to champion hill and the big black river. he does it in a remarkably short amount of time. john pemberton cannot give his acts together to keep up with it . that is so they end up at vicksburg. pemberton never had a chance. and when the troops -- when the confederate troops fall back into the works around vicksburg, interesting thing takes place. very different from what happens

in most battles and the confederacy. that is, the presence of the civilians. a great comparison to make between vicksburg -- regarding the civilians, fredericksburg virginia. the battle takes place six months earlier, december 1862. at fredericksburg you have robbery he leaves behind, you know, the town in the hills. the union army. across the river, the town of fredericksburg is in the way, right in the middle. he goes and tells them, leave, get out. listen to him. it is this a sad scene of this wagon train of refugees, you know, toddling wagons, the ball in everything that they can carry, their families, and they're leaving fredericksburg. they're going into the countryside. the town becomes empty and the battle takes place. at vicksburg they're given the same opportunity. a state.

they believe, as to the soldiers, it is incredible. but the river. the river is down there. rear up on the sidewalks. there's nothing the navy can do about that. the union navy contract steamboats. we have some much artillery along this river, your toes to try to come by these guns. and then look what we have done that in the countryside. all of these works. this was over 30,000 troops. the citizens are looking. there is no army. the army is right there. great. this perfect. so they stay. then the navy does come in fact, make the run past the guns that night in april of 1863. yes, casualties, and against take a little salt. admiral david dixon porter, marvelous character, and a superior naval man for the navy pulls off. he gets a lot of his gun boats and a whole bunch of supply barges and a run in the middle

of the night in the past the guns at vicksburg which enables grant to come across the river south of vicksburg and make his run across mississippi. nobody in vicksburg expects that, and the townspeople and not even really aware of it because the river is that are flying through the confederate army is that grant is leaving. they're retreating. you need controls new orleans. admiral farragut captured new orleans. so word flies that the reason you see across the river, on the louisiana site command you see all these union troops over there marching south, the reason you see that, they're leaving. they're running away. the people want to believe that they convince themselves of it. there is no reason to leave. after the battle of the black river, when the union gunboats are sort of upper river, they began to shell the town of vicksburg all day and all night. suddenly all that wonderful

confederate army goes out to meet ulysses grant and will shut him right out of mississippi. suddenly they come pouring back into those airports because they have not quite worked them out. and suddenly the citizens of expert realize that their army is right here. and in those earthworks, and now the artillery shells are coming into town from the other direction, from inland. they realized, maybe we have a problem here. that problem becomes the siege of the city of expert and lasts 47 days. during that time the food dries up. the horses that there are have no forage. people begin to eat the mules. the army. the people suffer the same privation that the army suffers, and they're starving to death. and they cannot open their homes. they cannot stay in their homes because the union artillery is showing them constantly.

it is dangerous. they go into the countryside and they dig holes in the ground. they're living in caves. they take things out of their own homes, where they can carry, to make as much of dollars they can. beds, wash basins, dishes, whether they can carry. they take it into the countryside to try to make holes in the ground. insomnias possible, but very soon there run out of food, and then the horrible happens. they begin to eat the domestic animals. then they begin to eat rats. it is a pretty sad story. once i found this out and began doing this research are realized, i have to have that voice. for the first time -- i had never done this before, in a chain of thunder you have one of the principal voice is calm a 19-year-old civilian girl and lucy's spence who starts out as a typical, young girl who is a

seven confederate young woman, very naive and innocent and proper. by the end of the story she has witnessed and experienced some of the most terrific things that anyone would ever hope to experience. she hopes the army by serving as a nurse in the makeshift hospitals there, and those experiences shape this woman into her she becomes for the rest of her life, and that is a story, that story arc is something and never included in the book before. i knew i had to have that. i knew that was an essential part of the story. next -- right now i'm working on -- because i'm on a buggy your schedule which is not something i am accustomed to. it is not easy. i get no downtime. if you go to my website there's a picture me holding a pair of red fish that i caught at cap -- panama city, florida. that is why i enjoy doing. i have not been fishing in a while. i turned this manuscript in back

in january. we ended it, and immediately got into research on the next one. now, it said for a long time at my website, random house, this is a trilogy and therefore a chain of thunder is the second of a trilogy. well, the same thing happened -- first of all, publishers like trilogies. i think there's something about the conduct them in a boxer something. they're happy with the idea of a trilogy. the first civil wars, my father's book is the centerpiece , a trilogy in the box said. so they like that idea. alice asked the third book. well, sometimes i forget where i am while i'm on tour. i'm sorry. i just did larry night. i wake up the hotel and have to think about what saddam and. is the nature being on the torque. and one of the things that happens to me last year with the shiloh book, and at the atlanta

history center. and someone asks me, oh, what is the trilogy going to beat. asset, well, the second book will be expert in the not thinking wire was a set, and the third book, i think they're going to start with the burning of atlanta and then i'm going to have sherman and the march to the sea -- you know, and the crowd gives me this audible groan sound. and i realized, here in atlanta. you know, so i sort of did myself out of this. well, john bell hood will be a pivotal character confederate character in the area lies, john bell hood is the confederate general who essentially defeats himself and hands the city of edmonton to sherman, so that doesn't do me any good. and then i said, well, of course, joseph johnson will be a big part of this. the character, a confederate general retreats all the way across northern georgia rather than face sherman on the battlefield. by adjusting the of deeper and deeper.

i realized, you know, might as well just quit while i'm ahead. the same thing happened last night in atlanta. this time i have learned, pay attention to where you are, know your audience, as somebody said to me. good point. but the story is with the story is. and i realized, if that is going to be a trilogy, as the third of this set is going to start in atlanta and the end of the war, and i love this piece of trivia, the reason i was focusing on the carolinas at the end, most people, probably many of you learn that the civil war ends on april 1965 when lee's surrender to grant at appomattox. that is what rethinks. that's not rich in spirit the war does not end in the carolinas and tell joe johnston surrendered to sherman to a half weeks later after lincoln's assassination, there's still a war going on. and that's a trivia question, that's a story people don't

know. so i'm excited about that, but then i realized, if i jump from vicksburg to the atlanta to my have just skipped a year of history and a whole lot of stuff that i can't mess. so what i did is went to my publisher and this exact same thing happens in my world war ii series. it is a trilogy on the war in europe. and i got a lot of letters from marines saying, europe, what is this your stuff? we're not in europe. there was another war going to rob halfway around the world where the marines are. yes. the realize that. not a good idea to give marines matter you. so i did a fourth book. i convinced random house to allow me to do off for book trilogy. bad math in new york. and so i wrote a book on the end of the war in the pacific, okinawa and the bomb.

i realize i am the exact this same situation, so i went back to new york the first of this year, said dow my publisher and convince them to let me to another 4-book trilogy. and so that is what i'm doing. well, the third now of this 4-part trilogy will be chattanooga lookouts mountain. and in terms of the history and in terms of sort of, you know, momentous name such about a shoot like shiloh and vicksburg or antietam and gettysburg in fredericksburg, chattanooga is probably not up there. some of the rising stars on both sides and some of the eclipsing stars, black cimbri, for one, if you think you have chauncey pemberton, wait until you see this man a chattanooga from the confederate side. there is a rising star in the confederate army as well. his name is patrick clayborn, stonewall the last.

he is -- those two are going to be pivotal voices in the story, and then on the union side of course to you have sherman again, but you also have decides grant, george thomas. george thomas is a character does not get his due. i have gotten a lot of letters from people who say, you need to mention george thomas. well, i am. he is in the center of what he and his people accomplish a chattanooga really wednesday. underneath them, you know, people you have heard of, sheridan, young division commander, well, his star is definitely on the rise, and there are few others, but that is a very interesting story. then, of course, you have the grunts. i love the grounds. i love the kid, you know, the 20-year-old kid who is now a veteran who is now seeing the worst that man can do to each other and live through. now he's a part of it. that is of his personality changes. help his long @booktv young

lieutenant and what happens to them as a big part of the story. so i'm excited. and in the middle of this right now and it will be out next may. hopefully will be back right here. i want to end this because a very much want to here from you. i love questions. that is the most fun for me. i just want to tell you a story. first of all, i am very involved with the civil war trust, on the board. if you don't know what that is, is the largest battlefield preservation organization in the country. we by dirty. that is sort of the unofficial motto. we by thousands of acres, say battlefield's everywhere, including around here, including vicksburg. and that is a very important mission. part of my involvement with that came about by an experience that i had, and i just want to tell you a story. bear with me on this. imagine your a confederate soldier.

you have your musket come in the woods community have been ordered to sit there and dug down and wait. it's not. you are around your buddies. there is some car plane going on. guys are chatting, reading the bible, writing letters of the of whether they're doing to kill time, and there is an artillery barrage somewhere. you're not really paying much attention to that it is does not affect you and you're not ducking or anything. the artillery is going on for quite a while, and then stops. then you hear the drums start to beat and the bugles start to blow, and you know what that means, to stand up and fallen to formation. you do that. shoulder to shoulder with guys next to you. another line of guys behind you. the sergeant is back there yelling profanities', like he always does to keep you in line. out front is are the tennant. peoples is sort command unit to pay to story goes. the bugle call comes for you to advance. so you start to walk. you are still in the woods. you cannot see anything.

gradually you break out of the woods into the wide open -- and i mean wide open. you look a man out in front of you is a mile of open grassy fields and cornfields and way over there, kind of upper arise you can see this pipeline, and the black klein is a rock wall. and upon the hill behind that you can see stuff going on, wagons moving in artillery pieces, but it is a long way off. you're really not paying attention to that because you're caught by the fact that on both sides of you these men and a shoulder to shoulder with you are as far as you can see in both corrections. you don't know that there are 12,000 of you in a line 1 mile wide. and you are walking. i've had people question is. come on. you mean to tell me it when there is an attack these guys literally just stood up and took one step at a time, not this hollywood idea of a charge, you

know, everyone screams and yells and runs. try that for a mile with a tent on musket in your hand and see what kind of shape. the end. well, no, they walk one step in the time. as in as -- the whole army clears the woods and you're out of the open, those guys over there can see you. what they do? dear chiller stars to fire. the first in a fire is solid shot. you can see them coming because they bounce and a skip through the grass and there is no way you can go. they're coming so fast that you can see them, but you cannot get out of the way because you cannot move. you're walking in line and suddenly five guys down here argon. you keep walking. the sergeant is still yelling at you. there is the lieutenant. you keep going. you come across this crass to be more solid shot comes through, another is explosive shot. the blast all over the place, smoke starts to fill the field. the start to cough.

sulfur, smoke and come to a road with a fence and you have to stop. officers are scrambling around yelling at you to take defense down. you have to disassemble, pull the rails down for the guys behind you so they can walk through the fence. you cross the road and start to go uphill. up their is a rock star. right in front of the a bunch of guys in blue jump up and fire their muskets real quick wildly and then they scamper up the hill. that is a skirmish line. they go back to where the bodies are and, you know, it's fairly harmless so far. you're still walking. the next u.s. kind of bumping into you because you're all scared to death. then you realize, you look over here and there's a whole bunch of blue that comes down into the field. perpendicular to you, boys. and they fire a volley that is called firing sideways right to underline. for the first time you hear that awful sound of lead and bone, the sound of a cracking.

in the guy next year drops. and you want to stop and do something, but the sergeant is right behind you in the gaps in the back. keep going. he yells at you. the legend is still there, and you keep walking. now you see the emotion behind those rocks up there. 1,000 blacks suddenly appear. a reflection of a thousand bayonets as the muskets come up over the wall and that first volley fires, and now there are lots of crack walnuts all around you and guys screaming and guys crying in the future around and run because they cannot take it. you are still walking. you are walking through the grass. the tennessee. you can't breathe. you're scared of your mind. you're a shot in the back, it means you're a coward, and so you back away. you step over the stone wall. you back away. all of these guys in blue come back up to the stonewall.

a respect the retreat. what they do instead of firing the muskets, they start yelling. a single word. they start checking it over and over again. the word is frederiksberg, fredericksburg. it is the revenge of the union against what you did to them at the battle of fredericksburg. and you gradually make your way back down the hill. what i just described you his pickets charge. my father took me across that piece of ground in 1964. i was 12 years old. he told me this story as we made that mile walk. and as we crossed the road and climb that hill. and he's telling me the story of one man in particular, not the history lesson. he's telling me the story of a man named louis arm instead, a brigadier general from the confederate army. and he cannot before the war, a major in the u.s. army.

the blue uniform. one of his closest friends is a man named winfield's got hancock who now is a major general in the union army, and there are both in california at the outbreak of the war. these best friends hugged each other, and i have the memoir by a mile hancock, his wife, who was there who writes this scene. it happened. they hug each other. and he says hancock, if i should never raise my sword against you , may god strike me dead. and on this day, on july 3rd, 1863, that is exactly what he's doing. telling me this story, and as we stepped over the stonewall, what today if you go to gettysburg is the high watermark of the confederacy, what they call it, you step over. restore walking up the hill and they're is a monument, a small concrete thing. a confederate flag sticking into the ground next to it.

what's that? we don't know. the father walks around, looks at it, it is the place where are bestead fell. now, a total surprise. i like my father. there are tears running down his cheeks. he did not expect to see that because for that moment he was on instead. i'm 12. i've never seen my father cry. that's a moment that will stick with me for the rest of my life. certainly stuck with him because that started the odyssey that produced the killer angels that took him seven years to write. that moment stuck with me and is the reason that i'm here today. now, i am a huge believer, as i said, in battlefield preservation, but at the same time the only nonfiction book have done, much as though the zoo is not the general, a museum

is not the battlefield. i love museums, but you need a ground. go to the ground, what the ground, and if you should ever happen to take that walk, whether it is at gettysburg or anywhere else, if you have the chance, take a 12-year-old with you. thank you. [applause] [applause] if any of you have any questions of all please feel free ask. >> not a question but a comment. i did the very same thing. i have walked that field. it is an emotional experience, an analysis. hard to imagine. >> it was then. i mean, that is exactly what it was.

the farmers' fields. farmhouses out there. some are still there today. this is a very special place, and is not taking anything away from vicksburg or anywhere else that you might go. shiloh, to me, it's about 98 percent perfect as it was in 1862. is one of those special places. any of these places. i see this all the time. what they got -- with the civil war trust likes to call the back seat people. that is who i wrote my book for. imagine you see a car at about off -- the car and tourists to the battlefield. looking in every monument and the blacks and the cannons. people in the back seat to when you know, coming back to the hotel now. those are the people on trying to reach. those of the people, if you can't delegate story, and it is not a history lesson, if you until august or you can reach those people. that's what i've tried to do.

[inaudible question] >> joseph johnston was deserting the city of jackson. it is not a good day for the confederates. i mean, joseph johnston is in command of this entire theater of the war, the west of the appellation. and he does not really want the job. he despises jefferson davis. they have been feuding for more than a year. he despises john pemberton console he won't really come to his assistants at vicksburg. it is nothing vicksburg is worth saving. syria's very half-hearted. he is focusing most of his attention so far in tennessee with paxton black and some other people, trying to sort of, you know, maybe recaptured-filled with something like that. he really does not carry all about mississippi. davis orders and, you know, go to mississippi.

expert is important. johnston comes to jackson mississippi and he arrives your. he is sick. it is a dismal rain storm. it's like the worst you can imagine to be on horseback. he rides, he gets off the train, rides, as you're supposed to do, to look good euratom norris, come into town with a staff. he is as sick as a dog with this document. he comes in, checks and to his hotel. his staff sets up shop. and he has -- he really has no enthusiasm for doing anything but leaving. and when he gets word that sherman is coming with four divisions, just out to the west, he orders some defense to be made. he puts artillery out there is lows and down. tell you what, i will send word to pemberton that he is to come out of vicksburg and attack sherman in the rear. maybe that will defeat sherman. meanwhile, i'm going north.

he packs up and heads north of jackson and leaves the city. and so the token force that is left behind does come back. he pulls them away for an hour. then sherman sends people around the end, circled around behind and see if we can get these guys off from the rear. virtually nobody there and captures a few confederate soldiers and artillery people and that is it. and then officers grant and sherman marched right into jackson. it is a pretty sad day. and meanwhile, joseph johnston -- i mean, sherman actually considers chasing the sky. we should be pursued. grant is like, no, he has the target. the target is always vicksburg. curve back around and head west and is exactly what happened. but during the siege of vicksburg rumors are rampant in the city that joe johnston is

coming. pemberton believes it to a point, he allows all of his generals to spread their risk because it keeps morale up because they believe, you know, just as going to save them. by this time justin has gathered 30,000 troops. that is a sizable force. there are sitting north and east of the city doing essentially nothing while the siege of vicksburg goes on. joe johnston allows the expert to fall into grants hands, all the while right up until the end, the soldiers, the townspeople are hearing, joe is going to come, he will save us. he doesn't. his eyes to keep his army to fight another day. that is in and not show the story. now, that may sound to you like and a slimming judge johnston. he's a good soldier does some good things. he's a hero in the mexican war, a good engineer in the mexican war.

at that time his friends of robert e. lee. by this time he's in a feud with relief. he really does not go along with much of anybody. and how will history have changed, you know, and johnston, in fact, come up in grants rear. gramm was concerned about this. grant had sherman take 40 percent of his army and turn him. go back up to the big river and keep an eye out because johnson could show up and we might have a problem if we're not ready for that. grant is fully prepared for that and it never happens. and, you know, johnson, after the war, the recriminations flying. johnson writes in his memoir, you know, all of this negative stuff about how pemberton was response of the loss. that is totally accurate, but pemberton rights back that is johnston who was responsible. horrible kind of thing that nobody wants to read about. this kind of a feud, but that is the way it is in sub. what is the answer?

ami, historians debated today. i cannot get into that. as the story. and what joe johnston does or what he does not do possibly change the history of this whole part of the country. anyone else ever question? yes, and the back. [inaudible question] >> my father, you know -- the question is my father wrote other bugs after the killer angel. he did write other books but none of them are historical. the killer angels' is the only historical book that he ever wrote. people want to know what else he wrote. because the killer angels was not particularly successful in his lifetime, one of the rumors -- and i'm glad you brought this up. one of the things i hear a lot, and i'm glad to address this. he wrote guns and generals. there was a reviewer in texas somewhere when guys in generals came out in '96.

what is this guy doing? find a manuscript of his father's effects and slapped his own name on a? you know, that is not a very nice way of putting it. but i thought about it and realized, was a wonderfully backhanded compliment because what he is saying is he could have written dozens generals. i mean, that is a really nice complement, not the way he intended it, but, no. one of the rumors is my father had started guns and generals and i finish it. no. he had no audience for the killer angels. he had not found that audience. there was no incentive for him to continue the story. he went on to write a hitchcocks sci-fi novel called the "herald" that nobody read. then he rode a baseball story. i know some of you know this. the book was not published in his lifetime. and at the time of his death my mother and i were going through his files and found the only existing manuscript -- this was back in the days before computers and save him a typewritten manuscript.

a ticket to the york. and baseball had gotten hot. field of dreams. these wonderful baseball stories. baseball was in fashion. my father, the master of bad timing, able to get the book published. universal pictures jump all over it. 1999 the movie came out with kevin costner and kelly preston. it's called for love of the game and it is all over cable. you can see it all the time. is this wonderfully sweet film about an aging baseball pitcher. it is based on the novel by michael. a lot of people don't realize that my father wrote that book. and that is the second time that i have been at a movie premiere when the lights go down and the credits come up and seen based upon the novel that he did not live to see. i take that very seriously. thank you for that question. [inaudible question]

>> well, lincoln is a character in the sense that he is always a character. his presence is always there. the quotes from lincoln and the book, lincoln, the only book that i've written where lincoln is physically present is the last full measure because the appointment to command the an army. grant goes to washington. that story is told through the eyes of grant. grant and lincoln. the lincoln they grant new. his take on this guy. and in a conversation that trend has with sharon later in that story. this happened. it's accurate historical. sherman does not like lincoln. is not a fan of lincoln. you think is kind of yahoo, kind of a hayseed. grant said some straight. well, i don't think so. because he has met him face-to-face. chairman really hasn't. but his presence in the sense

that, you know, there is a great buffer between grant and lincoln. that offer is henry halleck and secretary of war stanton. and they like being the buffer. they like keeping him in the dark as much as it possibly can. they are what -- running the board. he understands they're not his friends which is one reason why grant cuts his communication with washington. the telegraph lines, when grant is in mississippi, the nearest telegraph his memphis. and so if you want to get its telegraph -- if washington wants to grab him it takes forever for word to get to his army, and that is just fine with grant. now, that's not lincoln. lincoln has given a grant carte blanche to do what he wants to to take the city of vicksburg. that is the order that grant receives. whenever it takes, do it. that is passed to grant from lincoln through stanton and alec. and that freedom is something

that no commander has had up until that point. and, you know, a lincoln mark are ready cannot depend on george mcclellan, and you cannot depend on burnside and harder. these other disasters, but he can depend on grant. granta's get the job done. in that sense the gary definitely was a presence. you're not there in the white house. he is a long way from vicksburg. yes, sir. >> a major character. one of the characters -- i talked about the grounds. on the character is a young lieutenant. the chattanooga book. he is more into tennessee. he was further, sort of east of where shiloh yesterday. he was touring a lot of good work for the confederacy with this cavalry, but he was not

directly involved in the fighting. he was just too far away. grant -- and i make this point in the book. grant is very aware where forest is. you want to know where he is because he has suffered at the hands of old van doren and a place called holly springs in northern mississippi. grant has already experienced having a bunch of confederate cavalry show up on his backside and just destroy his supply depot and wreck everything and capture trains and wagons and all kinds of stuff. that cost sam the retired can't -- entire campaign december december 1862. he is not making that mistake again. he keep his eye and where he is, but he stays awake and focuses much more on tennessee at that point. of course, like i say, you will come back in the next book won the fight begins around chattanooga because he is a key player just prior to that. >> not at all. not at all.

i mean, you can say, gee, it would have been nice to make a better point of view had been there. one of the complaints come by joe johnston took cause category. pemberton did not have eyes out there in the countryside the way it granted. he did not know where he was a what direction they're going in. he had less than 1,000 cavalryman to support his army, and that was not doing it. they can just keep their eye on those guys and keep them been been and there is nothing that pemberton could do about it. that was, talking about joe johnson taught, he took all the cavalry and took them into tennessee. felt like he needed and there. anyone else? >> of all the characters,. [inaudible question] >> if you're talking far beyond the civil war i can tell you --

okay, well, civil war, there are two. one of them i had to kill. and, you know, when i wrote guns and generals to my first book, i'd never done this before. did not know what it was like to get emotionally involved with these characters. that's what it takes. i have to feel that i love these people in order to get into their heads. someone said to me, how dare you put words in the mouth of robert e. lee. point taken. if i dared to do that i better believe those words are authentic to the character, or you won't believe it, in the book just won't work. that process involves really getting in love, falling in love these characters. one of them is stonewall jackson i love the character of jackson, and i always knew that there is going to come that time when i will reach the time line of may 10th 1863 and i'm going to

have to kill this man. that's one of the toughest phase of my life. i was bawling all they writing the chapter. in the chapter itself actually went away and did not expect. it took me in a direction that totally surprised me. i mean, that is one of those magical things that happens to riders every now and then. every writer knows this. that was amazing. but that was -- the other one is grant. i talk about camelot. i realize where i am. you cannot deny that ulysses grant won the war. a lot of other people might have lost it, but he won it. lincoln understood that. he understood that he finally found the right guy to put in charge. i give lincoln credit for that. it is all over. it is just a matter of time. he says that. those words. i use that in the last full measure a lot where grant says it's just a matter of time. he knows he has the guns, the

people, the strength, the power, the food, the horses die and leave dozens. you have been very patient. thank you. i will sit back and sign some books. they care very much. >> for more information visit the of this website. >> what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know. >> it happens to the andrew billingsly -- andrew billingsly is yearning to breathe free. a book that i was honored to have written the footnote four. born in south carolina in 1839.

in 1915. recently i've been spending time on this book, and of given much thought. it's because i see what is happening today here, supreme court decisions, legislation, federal and state levels, but somewhat reminiscent of what happened with robert smalls. robert smalls after getting his freedom by delivering the shifted. so it took union forces.

and he took that and with his freedom regardless. he became a delegate to the 1880 constitutional convention. that codified for the state those freedoms that were being granted from slaves with the emancipation proclamation to 1863. he gave his freedom and became a

member of congress and spent five terms. he was one of the eight african americans to serve in south carolina in 1989. now, smalls was also part of the legislature in 1895. in 1895 -- date given back, it was all taken away in the constitutional convention of 1895. if you looked at what was taking place between 1866, 1876 because

it was the 1876 president's election that creates the opportunity that led to the ending of reconstruction in which eventually led to the creation of jim crow and the apartheid in the seven parts of the united states of america. so if you look at what was going down from 1876 up until 1895 and that 20 year time frame resaw the beginning of the end of.

and so by the time robert smalls died, 1950, he died. broken hearted. not near as well like to see once was. and so i spent a lot of time talking about the history lesson as i used to say to my students when i taught this, if it happened before, it can happen again. we see all of the speculation, the most important civil-rights act that i think was enacted,

that's about so come to a significant and. programs, affirmative-action. there were several names that would take positive steps. you have to take positive steps to overcome the current effects of discrimination. is just not going to happen by itself. if we bring that, i saw a few days ago one of the leading scholars in this country who were saying, plan to be the

chief justice to the civil rights movement as we know it. and if you look at the numbers nc. [inaudible] been in our society and he think it the glass is full. many of them still have a lot of work to do. i don't think that we will successfully navigate through this. is exactly what it is revealed.

jackson said it best. give the people a chance. if they fail to leno lessons, history is about to repeat. and i'm trying to up five to make sure the people who listen educate -- this is mike rhodes malls. transmit history every once in awhile. >> let us know what you are reading this summer. tweet as, @booktv composed on our facebook page, or send us an e-mail book tv at c-span.org.

>> here are the best-selling nonfiction books. this list reflects sales as of june 20th. first on the list. ..

up next move, book tv will peter slen interviews authors in london, this week claire tomalin followed by the literary editor of the observer common rubber to one defeat does -- robert.