>> is a moral law was just share of -- him another costanza the twinkie union and confederate armies in vicksburg, mississippi 1860's 3 on booktv. led by ulysses s. grant union forces chris the confederate

army to retreat to vicksburg and held the location under siege until the confederates surrendered on july 4th, 1863, ceding control of the mississippi river. this is a little over an hour. >> good reason to be in jackson this time. and that took place 40 miles west of here. this is quite a story, a story even some people around here don't know. is great fun for me. i need to start off talking about people lie always mention. at least some of you have some interest in the civil war for one reason, because many years ago perhaps, you read a book called the killer angels. people not their heads.

if you have no idea what the killer angels' is. and is the story of the battle of gettysburg. what the killer angels' is not is a history of the battle of gettysburg. it is not history. it is a story told to you from the characters themselves. and a determined it would be a battle of gettysburg. sometimes joshua chamberlain, and my father took you there and told you the story the way they would tell it. nobody had ever done that

before. my father was not an academic historian. he caught a lot of grief on that book. every major university history department has the civil war guy, the british guy, the medieval guy, florida state university has the civil war guy. this guy said to my father who are you to tell us what robert e. lee was thinking? the killer angels' is a book that should never have been written. a year after that, a marvelous thing happened to my father. telegram comes to his house congratulations, the killer angels has been awarded the 1975 pulitzer prize for fiction. i don't know if he took that telegram over to the history department at florida state and -- they still were friends, but

any author who wins a pulitzer prize has the right to believe his ship has come in. anything he wants to do will be sought after. there will be publishers fighting over his work. his book will become a best seller. this is what happens today. none of that happened to michael shaara. think about 1975, end of the vietnam war. nobody in this country wanted to read a book about generals. was as unpopular subject as you could imagine. my father was a master of bad timing. crushing blow to him was the killer angels' faded away. unless you were in the military, i've talked to some people today who were command staff at leavenworth, if you were at west point or the military academy it was required reading. if you were a military officer or civil war buff in the 70s and

there were some you might have picked up killer angels otherwise you never heard of it. the book just faded away until 1993. in 1993 the movie gettysburg came out which is based on the killer angels, ted turner's great risk, he risked millions of dollars to put that book on the screen at for the first time the killer angels, on the strength of the film became a new york times bestseller, 19 years after it was published. for four weeks it was number one on the new york times best-seller lists. 19 years later, years after my father's death. he did not live to see that. turner's people came to me and said wouldn't it be great to take your father's book which discovers four days, and go both directions, before and after, follow the same characters and tell the story the same way.

always about being a movie. i had never written anything before. that is not false modesty. i had never written anything before. i was a businessman in tampa. i thought about it, okay maybe this is something of like to try to do and i started working on the prequel going before gettysburg, back to the beginning of the war, the characters, some of the same characters my father used but different people like stonewall jackson, fabulous character, really had fun with that and started putting this together that someone else would adapt for a screenplay. it was always about being a movie. people ask me how did you know how to write a book, weren't you scared? no. because there were no expectations. the idea is i will put this together using my father's kind of research, the original material, go back to the voices, diaries, memoirs, collections of letters, all the stuff from people who weren't there. that is the key and by remembered that from my father's

writing and define going to do this i need to do that kind of research but we talked about the fact the whatever come of with his lousy it goes in the trash. nobody will ever know so there was no risk, no expectation and i am representing my father's estate in new york city, random house, this number one bestseller, the killer angels, take my phone calls and talking to them about what i am doing, i am writing the prequel to the killer angels' called gods and generals and they said you ought to send as the manuscript and take a look at it. i sent them the manuscript. the phone call i got was we don't care if it is a movie, we like the book, we think you are a writer. here is a contract. that changed my whole life and that is not an exaggeration. that changed my whole life. 13 books later, it definitely has changed my life. the point of those stories, the

magic of the killer angels, what my father did is he was able to take you with him back to a time where you could see the story in a way you had never seen it before. you don't get that from a modern biography or modern history book ledge that is not what historians do. historians so you facts and figures, they get the story straight hopefully if they're a good historian. my father did it very differently. what i began to hear when i was talking about those books and began to go to different sources, back to the mexican war. amazed me how many people didn't know there was a mexican war in 1846. we fought mexico. the key to the mexican war is who took part? all these generals you know from the 1860'ss. they were all young lieutenant in 1846 right out of west point, some of them clueless about good story.d go back to the american revolution. you know the american revolution, john and abigail

adams and benjamin franklin and george washington, you all know that in school. do you really know the story. i had fun, hit the ground running with this and began to enjoy getting in the heads of these characters, you know who they are but do you know what it was like for them, benjamin franklin when he said deuce king c-span: into coming into the war on our side and saving us? the british were winning, the finest army and navy in the world, as they were defeating us until the french came in and joined us, the french bailed us out and allow us to win the american revolution. that is a story most people don't know. we returned the favor a few times, we returned the favor a few times which we do know. i began to hear audiences i didn't know that.

that is fun. thinking what story don't you know. most americans get their history from hollywood which is a sad statement to make but if you think about world war ii vs world war i, they are making them today, how many movies have been made about world war ii, hundreds and hundreds and i can count on hand the good movies made about world war i, time -- paths of glory, all quiet on a western front, sergeant york, that is about it. most people just don't know about the lafayette drilled or the red baron. the red baron by the way is not just a cartoon character, someone wondered. he is a marvelous character, the german voice in that story, the marines, maybe you heard of the low would but i bet you don't

know the story of what the marines accomplish, they saved paris, responsible for the germans not winning of the war by capturing paris. that is how close it was. black jack pershing. you get the point. if i can find these characters, if i can find a story you don't know i get excited about that and hopefully it gets you excited as well and makes you want to read the book tour least learn about these people. i was a little hesitant about that, what can i tell you about world war ii you don't know? back to what i said about hollywood you know all those stories, you know d-day and pearl harbor and all that stuff and i began to find things, began to find the story of north africa, when the americans go to war against hitler we don't go to europe, we go to north africa and the first thing we do is we get our butts kicked by a guy in

casting pass into nietzsche. that is not a movie hollywood is going to make because it did not a movie americans want to see but it is what happened and that was interesting. i can't tell you how many people wrote to me and said i didn't want to like that. but can't help but. is a good character. i was going to do korea. i have been getting a lot of letters and talking about korea for years, lot of korean war veterans writing me, getting on my case. i hear from guys saying we are getting older too, people talk about world war ii veterans, korean veterans are right there with them. i understand that. most americans know about korea from-. match is not about korea at all. about vietnam. it is said in korea and they tell you is korea but hawkeye,

talked to general 1951, the 1970s story. what about in sean. what about the yalu river, what about the chosen reservoir? visa stories that are important for a great many americans particularly if you were is there, what about the story of truman and macarthur, that relationship, talk about people who are not friends, history making stuff and the story most americans don't know. i'm excited about doing corey and then this thing comes along in 2011, the sesquicentennial of the civil war, 150th anniversary and i'm talking to my publisher and they are saying we could take another look at the civil war. i have sort of done the stuff in the east, a can't tell you how many letters i have gotten from people in mississippi and tennessee who have said if we are kind of tired of hearing

about robert e. lee in virginia. there is a whole lot of stuff that goes on west of the appalachian mountains that nobody ever talks about and they are absolutely right and i began to look at that. not just the event that the characters. one character jumped out at me and i realize in jackson mississippi, i could pull his name out to you with some hesitation. the name is william tecumseh sherman. i was in atlanta last night, that is enough. what i already heard from people, the story of sherman, what he did is one thing, who he was in an interesting man. love him or hate him he is an interesting character who makes for good story. not the nicest guy in the world and i don't try to gloss that over. he understands what total work is. a lot of people in the 1860s

thought of it as the spat between gentlemen, you stood up with honor and face your fellow and all of that stuff that had gone on for hundreds of years and sherman understood it has changed and he was right. the idea of using chermac as a pivotal character all the way through this series got very interesting to me because he's a lot of places they're very important during the civil war and the first one of those was shiloh. so the book blaze of glory deals with charlotte, each on the 150th year of the event. last year was shiloh, 1862. when i got into the research i was surprised. i knew he would be a character and then there was the other character, the pivotal confederate voice is a character i was not all that familiar with, a lot of you are not all

that familiar with and his death changes the course of history. that is not an exaggeration. i'm talking about albert sidney johnston. if you don't know anything about albert sidney johnston that is fine, most people don't. johnson was the commander at shiloh, the confederate commander. he does not survive the battle. the reason that is important is in the confederate hierarchy albert sidney johnston out ranks robbery lee and what i've posit to you and i will debate this with any historian is in summer of 1862 when we is given command of the army of northern virginia by jefferson davis on the virginia peninsula is highly likely that if robert sidney johnston was alive, who by the way happens to be close friends with jefferson davis, it is highly likely and proper that that command would instead have gone to albert sidney johnston and we never would have heard of

robert e. lee. there is a flip side to is that. at the time of johnson's death at shiloh on april sixth, eighteenth sixty-two at 3:00 in the afternoon, his army is winning the battle. eric carrying the day and what he is trying to do is get his people between grant's army and the tennessee river where grant's base is and if he can cut them off grant has nowhere to go end he will be destroyed grant's army or they will have to surrender. in northern victory for the confederacy if it happens that way. at the time of johnson's death it was happening. had it happened, we never would have heard of ulysses grant. that would have been the end of his career. that is the way history changes, by the neck of a piece of lead in the back of albert sidney

johnston's knees that clips and artery and he bleeds to death without even knowing he is dying. simple tourniquet would have saved his life. he had won in his pocket. they didn't know. that is the kind of story. not what you usually hear about the battle of shiloh, not regiment was in what patch of woods but about the people. the other part of this which carries forward into this book as well, when i got to world war i in the twenty-first century until that point, had been told from the top down, the generals with the head guy, when you get to the 20th centuries that doesn't work anymore. one of the things, one of the problems with albert sidney johnston, he is one of the final breed of people, the general to lead from the front. not a good idea.

by world war i generals have figured that out and realize it is not a good idea to lead from the front, i am staying back there so the problem from a storytelling point of view you can't tell the story from the top down, the generals were 10 miles behind the lines, you need that guy in the front. who is it? it is the kid, the 19-year-old kid with the springfield, the musket, the m 1, that is the story you need to tell. i got into the 20th century it was important to find that character and not just the general. i liked that a lot. so going back to the civil war i didn't just go back to the generals again so i found the kid, a private in his regiment and his buddies and what they go through at shiloh and carries forward to the vicksburg story.

the vicksburg's story, the book is called "a chain of thunder," just came out may 21st and this book really surprised me for a couple reasons. i knew history of vicksburg but a lot of people don't. there is a reason for that and it is the reason it will be illustrated this year more graphically than at 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 two happened at the same time. today we call them media centers. even in 1863 weather was gettysburg? within 100 miles of washington d.c. and philadelphia and baltimore and not further from richmond where all the reporters are, all the photographers go to gettysburg. vix burgers in the middle of nowhere with all due respect,

think about 1863, the middle of nowhere so there are not hordes of newspaper reporters and photographers, certainly not on the confederate side so it gets overlooked. gettysburg is a huge news event and vicksburg, you can make the argument what happens at vicksburg by opening up the mississippi river to the union, that is far more important to the worse than what happens at gettysburg. you can debate that and i've heard debate about that, but it is not only does it center the confederacy in two, suddenly texas, arkansas, most of louisiana is -- you can't get there any more so all the supplies, all the food, all the manpower was coming to the confederacy coming east stopped,

doesn't happen anymore. they can't cross the river, union control the river. the other thing is vicksburg is a rail hub. correll road coming from the east stops at the river to points west, things would go back and forth, that stopped because now the union army controls the railroad, they have cut it off, you can't underestimate the power of rivers and railroads during the civil war. they didn't have interstate highways or trucks, it was rivers and railroads and 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 union navy to used to transport material, men, food, equipment, whatever they need into the south, it very definitely is the beginning of the end for the confederacy and a lot of people in the

confederacy know this and there are quote in the book to that effect but that is the history lesson. one i got into the characters and you have people like john pemberton, who is not to most confederates a favorite son. he is not a son at all because he is from pennsylvania and a little irony there because a lot of soldiers, confederate soldiers who served under him at vicksburg are not real happy about the fact that this guy is from pennsylvania. he married the woman from virginia which is why he pledges his 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 along, that he was really going to sell us out. there's no evidence that that was the case at all. i believe he was an honorable man, i just don't believe you was a very competent general and there are lots of examples of

that. i have a question in atlanta last night people last what was his problem? i tell you one thing, you was my co-manager and the problem is when you are micromanaging you have to micromanage every detail. you forget some details at the expense of others. great example, he gets into a fight with local farmers because in the confederate army the rules are when we buy corn from you tube delivered to us in bags as loose kernels of corn, not years of corn. we don't want ears of corn. as silly as that sounds that is a big fight with the local farmers, so the warehouses do not have worn. he could have filled the month, he didn't. one example, on and on, there is a lot of that.

the engineers, confederate engineers, samuel latka, marvelous character, the man responsible for the fortifications in vicksburg. he tells general -- 90 shovels, lots of shovels, he forgets about that, literally forgets, ignores it, trying to dig these earthworks and they have to do shifts because they don't have enough shovels to go around. and will hold war is lost, how pemberton is an example what shakespeare was talking about how -- just johnson, the other primary confederate character in this story, joseph johnson, if you know the history you know johnson is here in jackson, defends jackson when the union troops come across mississippi but then he decides not to and

he just leaves, he withdraws and hands the city of jackson to grant and sherman and mcpherson and the other union officers and what do they do? come in to burn anything of military value stand when you have a town made primarily of wood and you pick this building to burn and there are 15 buildings around it all made of wood, you know more than anyone else what happens and of course that is what happened, jackson -- it becomes a city of chimneys because most of it burns. ulysses grant, love him or hate him just like sherman, you have to understand what grant accomplishes in his capture of vicksburg. we credit the germans in world war ii with the tactic known as the blitzkrieg, lightning warfare, we think germans invented that but 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 and comes through raymond and jackson and acted champion hill, the big black river he does it in a remarkably short amount of time and john pemberton can't get his act together to keep up with demand that is how they end up in vicksburg. he never had a chance and when the troops, when the confederate troops fall back into the works around vicksburg interesting thing takes place that is very different from what happens that most battles of the confederacy and that is the presence of the civilians. a great comparison to make between vicksburg regarding the civilians is fredericksburg, va.. the battle of fredericksburg to displace six months earlier, december of 1862. you have robert levy behind the

town in the hill, the union army, burnside across the rappahannock river, the town of fredericksburg is in the way, right in the middle, lee tells them leave, get out, they do, they listen to him and it is a sad scene of a wagon train of refugees, people hauling everything they can carry and their families leaving frederiksberg going into the countryside until the town becomes empty when the battle takes place. at vicksburg they are given the same opportunity. they stated. they believe as the soldiers it is impregnable, look at the river, the rivers down there. nothing the navy can do about that, the union navy contrive steamboats but we have so much artillery along this river you are toasted you try to come by these guns and look what we have done in the countryside, all

these earthworks and long works, 30,000 troops here, the citizens of vicksburg their army is right there, this is perfect so they stay. when the union navy does in fact make the run past the guns at night in april of 1863 there are casualties and the guns take a toll little bit, admiral david dixon porter, marvelous character and superior naval man pulls it off, gets a lot of his gun boats and a bunch of supply barges and they run it in the middle of the night and get past the guns enabling grant to come across the river and make it across the mississippi, no one in vicksburg expects that and the townspeople aren't even really aware of it because the rumors that are flying through the confederate army that grand is leaving, they are retreating,

union controls waters, so the word flyers that the recent you see across the river, the louisiana side, you see all these union troops marching south, the reason you see that, they are leaving, they're running away. the people want to believe that, they convince themselves of that. they have no reason to leave vicksburg. after the battle of the big black river when the union gunboats begin to shell the town of vicksburg all-day and all-night, all that wonderful confederate army goes out to meet ulysses grant and they're going to shove grant out of mississippi, suddenly they come pouring back into the earth works because it hasn't quite worked out that way. citizens of vicksburg realize their s right here and nn the artillery shells are coming into town from the other direction

from inland and they realize maybe we have a problem here and that problem becomes the siege of the city of vicksburg that lasts 47 days and during that time food dries up, the horses have no foliage, the people begin to eat the mules as as the army, the people suffer the same privations that the army suffers and they are starving to death and they can't live in their homes, they can't stay in their homes because union artillery is shelling constantly. they go into the countryside and dig holes in the ground, caves, living in caves. they take things out of their own home, whatever they can carry to make as much of a home as they can, they take beds, wash basins, dishes whatever they can carry, take in the countryside, try to make these holes in the ground as homey as

possible but then very soon they run out of food and then the horrible happens. they begin to eat the domestic animals, they begin to eat rats, it is a pretty sad story. once i found this out and began doing this research i realize i have to have that voice and for the first time, have never done this before in "a chain of thunder" you have one of the principal voices, 19-year-old civilian girl named lucy spence who's starts out as a typical young girl, southern confederate young woman, very naive, very innocent, very proper and by the end of the story she has witnessed and experienced some of the most horrific things anyone would hope to experience. she serves as a nurse in a makeshift hospital and those experiences shape this woman

into who she becomes the rest of her life and that is the story, something never included in a book before but i knew i had to have that. i knew that was an essential part of the story. next, right now i am working on because i'm on a book your schedule which is not something i have done before and it is not easy. i get no down time, there's a picture of me holding up a pair of red fish that are caught in panama city, fla. that is what i enjoy doing in my down time. i haven't been fishing in a while. i turned this manuscript in for "a chain of thunder" in january and edited it and got into the next one. it said for a long time in my web site, that this is a trilogy and therefore "a chain of thunder" dealing with vix there is the second of a trilogy. the same thing happened.

publishers like trilogies. there is something, put them in shoebox or something, they are happy with the idea of a trilogy. the first civil war set with my father's book is the centerpiece and it is a trilogy and a box set so they like that idea and i was asked what is the third book going to be? sometimes i forget where i am when i am on tour. i get bleary eyed, woke up in a hotel and have to think about what city i am in and one of the things that happened to me last year with the shiloh book i am at the atlanta history center and someone asked me what is the trilogy going to be? the second book will be vicksburg and not thinking where i was i said and the third book i think i am going to start with the burning of atlanta and then have sherman and the march to the sea, and the crowd gave me

this audible growl sound and i realize you are in atlanta blues are started did myself out of this. john bell hood will be a pivotal character, a confederate character and i realize john bell hood is the confederate general who essentially defeats himself and hands the city of atlanta to sherman. that doesn't do me any good. and of course joseph johnson is the character, the confederate general who retreats all the way across northern georgia rather than face sherman on the battlefield. i am just digging the hole deeper and deeper and realize i might as well quit while i am i had. same thing happened last night in atlanta so this time i have learned, pay attention to where you are, know your audience as somebody said to me, good point. the story is what the story is and i realized if that is going to be the trilogy. 1/3 of this set is going to stars in atlanta at 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, learned that the civil war ends on april 9, 1865, when lee surrendered to grant at appomattox. that is what everybody thinks. that is not when it ends. the war does not end in the carolinas until joe johnston surrendered to sherman 2.5 weeks later, after lincoln's assassination there is still a war going on in the carolinas. that is a trivia question, a story people don't know. i'm really excited about that but then i realized if i jumped from vicksburg to atlanta i just get a year of history and a whole lot of cool stuff and i can't do that so what i did was i went to my publisher and the exact same thing happened in my world war 2 series, i did a

trilogy on the war in europe and i got a lot of letters from marines saying europe, what is this europe stuff, we are not in europe? there's another war going on halfway around the world where the marines are and realize that and it is not a good idea to get marines mad at you so i did a fourth boat, i convinced random house to allow me to do a four book trilogy, bad math in new york so i wrote a book on the end of the war in the pacific, okinawa and the bomb. i realize i'm in exactly the same situation saw went back to new york the first of this year, said down with my publisher and convinced them to let me do another four book trilogy and so that is what i am doing, the third now all of this four book trilogy will be chattanooga and lookout mountain and in terms of

the history, in terms of momentous names that jump out of you like shiloh and vicksburg or nt demand gettysburg, fredericksburg, chattanooga is probably not up there and yet some of the rising stars on both sides, some of the eclipsing stars, if you think you'll love john c. pemberton way into you see bastion brad at chattanooga from the confederate side but there's a rising star in the confederate army named after clayborn, stone wall of the west. i love that. he is -- those two are going to be pivotal voices in the story and on volume inside you have sherman again but you also got besides grant george thomas, george thomas is a character who doesn't doesn't get his due. i get a lot of letters from people who say you need to mention george thomas. well i am. he is in the center and what his

people accomplish at chattanooga really wins the day and underneath him people you heard of, phil sheridan, and there's an interesting story and of course you have the grants. i love the 20-year-old kid who is a veteran who is now seeing the worst man can do to each other and live through it and now he is a part of it and his personality changes and kenny wallace, his young lieutenant and what happens to them is a big part of this story. i am in the middle of this right now. hopefully i will be back right here. i want to end this and hear from you. i love questions, that is the m tell you a story. first of all i am very involved

with the civil war trust. i am on the board of the civil war trust. that is the largest battlefield preservation organization in the country. we blite dirt, that is the unofficial model. and including around here, it is a very important mission and part of my involvement came about by an experience i had. i want to tell you a story. it pleases me, bear with me on this. imagine you are a confederate soldier, you had your message you are in the woods and been ordered to sit there, hunkered down and wait and you are hot and on your buddy's and the guys are chattering, reading the bible, writing letters home, whatever they are doing to kill time. there is an artillery barrages out there somewhere, not paying much attention to that because

it doesn't affect you, you are not talking or anything and the artillery has gone on quite a while and it stops and you hear the drums start to beat and you will start to blow and that means it is time to stand up, fall into formation and you do that and you are shoulder to shoulder with the guys next to you and there's another one and guys behind you and the sergeant is yelling profanity like he always does to keep you in line and in front there is your lieutenant who pools this for a you know to go where egos and a bugle call comes for you to advance so you start to walk. you are still in water and can't see anything and gradually you break out of the water into the wide-open and i mean wide-open but you look in front of you, there's a smile of open grassy field and corn field and way

there you can see this black line artillery pieces a long way off and one not paying attention to that because you are caught by that, as far as you can see in both directions. what you don't know is there are 12,000 of you in a line a mile wide and you are walking and i had people questions is, come on. these guys literally stood up and took one step at a time, not hollywood idea of a charge with screams and yells and runs, try that for a mile with the ten pound musket in your hand and see what shape you are in at the end of the mile. they walk one step at a time and as soon as the whole army has cleared the woods and you are out in the open those guys over revers can see you so what do

they do? e artillery starts to fight iran the first thing they fires solid shots and you conceive and coming because they bounce and they skip through the grass and there is no where you can go. there coming so fast, you can see them but can't get out of the way because you can't move. you are walking in line and suddenly five guys are gone and you keep walking and the sergeant is still yelling at you and there is the lieutenant and you keep going and come across the grass and there is more of this solid shot coming through and explosive shot and there are blasts all over the place, smoke-filled the field and you start to cough from this over smoke and come to a road and the officers are scrambling around yelling at you take the fence down, full of rails sounds so guys behind you can walk through the fence and cross the road and up hill. and up here the rocks are, a bunch of guys in blue jump.

and they go back where their bodies are, it is harmless so far and you are still walking and the guy next to you is bumping into you because you are all scared to death and then you realize you look over here and here is a whole bunch of blue, comes down into the field, perpendicular, sideways and they fire a volley,y are firing sideways right down your line and for the first time you hear that awful sound of lead on bonn, the sound of a cracking walnuts and the guy next to you drops a and you want to stop and do something but the sergeant is behind you and says keep going and yells at you the lieutenant is still there and you keep walking and now you see the emotion behind those rocks and the thousands blue hat suddenly

appear and the reflection of the thousand bayonets has the message come over is a wall and the first volley fired its and now there are lots of cracking walnuts all around you and guys screaming and guys crying and a few guys turnaround and run because they can't take it and you are still walking hand you are walking through the grass, you can see, you can't breathe, you are scared out of your mind, you are shot in the back means you are a coward so you back away, you step over the stonewall, you back away and all these guys in blue come to the stonewall and respect the retreat but instead of firing their muskets they start yelling. a single word, they start changing 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 makes your way back down the hill to where it is 6. what i just described to you is pick it's charge. my father took me across that piece of ground in 1964. i was 12 years old and he told me this story of we made the mile walk and as we cross the road and as we climb that hill and he is telling me the story of one man in particular, not the history lesson, the story of a man, a brigadier general in the confederate army, louis before the war is a major in the u.s. army wearing the blue uniform and one of his closest friends is winfield scott hancock, a major general in the union army, both men in california at the outbreak of war and the best friends hugged each other and i have the memoir by my rough hancock who was

there, who writes this scene, as they hugged each other and he says if i should never raise my sword against you, may god strike me dead. on this day on july 3rd, 1863, that is exactly what he is doing. my father was telling me this story and we stepped over the toes -- stonewall. it is a high water mark. you step over the stone wall, and there is up monument, a small concrete thing and a confederate flag sticking out of the ground. what is that? we don't know. my father looks at it. it is quote place where armas said fell. that is a total surprise. i look at my father, tears running down his cheeks. he didn't expect to see that because for that moment he was armiste

armistead. i have never seen my father cry. that is a moment that will stick with me for the rest of my life. that started the odyssey that produced the killer angels'. it took seven years to write. that moment is the reason i am here today. i am huge believe her, i said this in my battlefield's book. the jungle, the museum is not the battlefield. i love museums, support them all well and good but you need the ground, go to the ground, what the ground and if you should never happen to take that walk whether it is gettysburg or anywhere else if you have a chance, take a 12-year-old with

you. [applause] >> if any of you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask. >> i walked that field at an angle and now it is just a field -- hard to imagine that. >> it was very bucolic then. it was a farmer's field and there were farmhouses and some of them are still there today. this is a very special place. that is not taking anything from vicksburg or anywhere else you might go. shiloh is 98% perfect as it was in 1862. one of those of special places. there's a lot of -- i see this

all the time, what they call, the back seat people. that is why i wrote my battlefield book. you see a car on the battlefield, people in the front seat looking at every monument, the plaques and cannons and stuff, people in the back seat, can we go back to is the hotel now? those that the people i am trying to reach. if you can tell a good story and it is not a history lesson, tell a good story you can reach those people and that is what i tried to do. anyone else? yes? >> a little bit on johnson. >> joseph johnston deserting the city of jackson, it is not a good day for the confederates when that happens. joseph johnston is in command of this entire theater of the war

west of the appalachians. doesn't really want the job, he despises jefferson davis. they have been feuding for more than a year, he despises john pemberton so he won't come to his assistance, he doesn't think vix burger's worth saving so he is very half-hearted, focused most of his attention on tennessee with some other people, trying to sort of recapture nashville or something and he really doesn't care at all about mississippi and davis quarters in go to mississippi, vicksburg is important, just comes to jackson, mississippi and arrived here and is sick and it is a dismal rain storm, the worst day you can imagine to be on horseback and he gets off the train, rides as you are supposed to do to look good, ride on the horse and come into town with his staff and sick as a dog with a stomach ailment and comes in

and checks into his hotel and the staff sets up shop and 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 johnson quarters some defense to be made, put some artillery out to slow the known and tell you what, i will send word to pemberton that he needs to come out vicksburg and he can attack chairman in the rear and that will defeat chairman and meanwhile i am going north and he heads north of jackson and leave the city and so the token force left behind does come back a little bit and james mcpherson and takes the way for an hour and sherman sends some people around the end, a circle around behind conlan and there is

virtually nobody there and captures a few confederate soldiers and that is it and the union soldiers march into jackson and it is up pretty sad day for citizens of jackson, mississippi and meanwhile joseph johnston, general sherman considers chasing this guy and grant is like he is not the target. the target is always vicksburg. we will curl around and head west and that is what happens but during the siege of vicksburg prayers are rampant that joe johnston is coming, and he allows all these generals to spread the rumors because it keeps morales up because johnson will save them. by this time johnson has gathered 30,000 troops, a sizable force, they are sitting

northeast of this city doing eastern chili nothing while the siege of vicksburg goes on. joe johnson allows vicksburg to fall into grant's hands right until the end, soldiers, townspeople are hearing he is going to save us and he doesn't, decides to keep his army to fight another day. sat in a nutshell is the story. it a sound like diane slamming joe jones and. he is a good soldier who does some great things, is a hero in the mexican war, at that time he is friends with robert e. lee and he is in the future with robert e. lee and doesn't get along with much of anybody. hallwood history have changed had johnson come up in grant's rear, grant was concerned about this, grant had sherman take 40% of his army the other way.

go back to the big black river and keep an eye out because johnson could show up and we have a problem if we are not ready for that. grant is prepared for that, it never happens. johnson after the war, the recriminations why and johnson writes in his memoir, this negative stuff about pemberton responsible for the loss and that is accurate and pemberton fires back again, johnston was responsible, this is horrible, the kind of thing nobody wants to read about, this kind of a few bad that is the way it ends up and when is the answer? historians debate it today and i can't get into that but that is the story ends with joe johnston does and what he doesn't do possibly change the history of this whole part of the country. anyone have a question? in the back?

>> did he ever -- >> the question is my father wrote other books after the killer angels'. none of them were historical. the killer angels' is the only historical book i ever wrote. they 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 about and glad to address this is that he wrote gods and generals, there was a reviewer in texas somewhere when gods and generals came out in '96 who said what did this guy do? find a manuscript in his father's affects and slap his own name on it? not a very nice way of putting it. i thought about it and realize what a wonderfully backhanded compliment because what he is saying is michael shaara could have written gods and general. that is a nice compliment. not the way he intended but no.

one of the rumors is my father started gods and generals and i finished it. no. he had no audience for the killer angels'. he had not found that audience. there was no incentive for him to continue that story. he went on to write a hitchcock sci-fi novel called the herald that nobody read and he wrote a baseball story. some of you knows this. the book was not published in his lifetime. at the time of his death my mother and i were going through his files and found the only existing manuscripts, back in the days before computers, save tight written manuscript -- baseball had gotten hot, robert redford made the national and bull durham and field of dreams and wonderful baseball stories, baseball is in fashion, my father the master of bad timing, able to get the book published in universal pictures jumped all over in 1999, the movie came out with kevin costner and kelly

preston called the law of the game ended is all over cable you see all the time, a wonderfully sweet film about an aging baseball pitcher and it is based on the novel by michael shaara. lot of people don't realize my father wrote that book. that is the second time i have been at a movie premiere when the lights go down and credits come up and see based on the novel by michael shaara that he didn't live to see. i take that very seriously. thank you for that question. >> the character in the first book, saying this was a big deal as far as relations. >> lincoln is a character and the sense that lincoln is always a character. his presence is always there. there are quotes from lincoln in the book. the only book i have written where when can is physically present is the last full measure

because he appoints grant command of the union army and grant goes to washington. that story is told through the eyes of grand. the lincoln that grant meat and his take on this guy and a conversation grant has with sherman later in that story, it is accurate historically where sherman doesn't like lincoln. he is not a fan of lincoln, thinks he is a yahoo! a hayseed and french set him straight, i don't think so. he met him face to face and general sherman really hasn't but his presence in the sense that there is a great buffer between grant and lincoln. that buffer is henry halleck and secretary of war stanton and they like being the buffer, leaving him in the dark as much as they can. they are running the war and grant understand they are not his friends so that is one reason i love this.

one reason grand cut his communication with washington. the telegraph lines when grant is in mississippi, the nearest telegraph is memphis. you want to get a telegraph like washington wants to gripe that him they take forever. ..