online at quayleridgebooks.com. >> karen abbott recounts the exploits of four women during the civil war who defended norman politicians to send privileged information to 7 generals. this is a little under an hour. >> i am thrilled to be here with abbott. i love her books. i love all of her books. singh in the second city which i love, you take us and show us this entire others view of chicago through the eyes of the two most famous american madams ever. in american rose we learned about this american icon gypsy rose lee who really hasn't been explored the way that you explore her. so now with "liar, temptress,

soldier, spy: 4 women undercover in the civil war" you had on things i adore. you have unexplored american history, espionage and women with some real sparks in a, really adventuress, incredible women. tell us a little bit about what this book is about. >> i tell you about this book. in eastern philadelphia i move to atlanta in 2001. and at the conversation in the south and a way it never does here in the north. the occasional considered -- confederate flag on the line. i heard about jokes about the northern war of aggression but the point was really driven -- the point and that was driven home especially that it wasn't a joke when i was stuck in traffic for hours baja and a pickup

truck that had a bumper sticker that said don't blame me. i voted for jeff davis. so i thought that when looking at this bumper sticker for hours and started thinking of course about what were the women doing. my mind goes to what the women were doing and they didn't have easy access to political discourse or the right to vote. they couldn't influence battles along wanted to see what the women were doing and that wanted to find in particular women who cheated life, murdered, drank shops, fought events through the war. these are the women i want to spend time with and as authors we often talk about how we find our stories. i found it on a bumper sticker. >> once that seed was planted how did you come across the street for incredible women?

>> four in particular whose stories touched in some way his tapestry woven to retells story and hadn't been told before and it was important to me that even if they were not physically interact in all the time, although two of the women do, kind of vitalize the old confederate guys there were running into the same people and there was a cause and affect. one woman's behavior would affect another woman's circumstances and i wanted to leave their stories together in an interesting way. one thing that like best about this is there are these four very distinct characters. they each have their own backgrounds, there and experience, their own views on this conflict can say offers the reader a specific view and entry point into the civil war. spoiler alert. here is how all the war ends. we know where this is going but what i like about this is we know where we are headed but

this to me is a personal way to look at not just this war but war in general. how people become involved. what roles they take on and how it affects their lives and these four characters are so distinct and different, talk a little bit about the four women who carries this book. >> all the women at different points, at lyres, temptresses, soldiers and spies and the first is boy to provide comic relief and actually my favorite who was insane. we were talking before we went on and said she is like a sociopath on spring break. if anybody remembers, she is having a really good time and there's something to talk about.

that is dull. and applying this to the civil war is a dangerous circumstance, but but belle boyd was a confederate sympathizer in virginia. i will just say that she is all it. if sarah palin and miley cyrus and a nineteenth century baby i think it would have been belle boyd. you want to see dirty pictures of her. further on actually. she road is a great letter to her cousin that sort of sums up how she thought about herself and which was what she thought about most of the time. i will read it tiny snippet of that. i am tall, she once boasted to her cousin. i weigh 106.5 pounds. my form is beautiful.

my eyes are dark blue and so expressive. my hair of rich brown and i think i tie it up nicely. my neck and arms are beautiful and my foot is perfect. i'll wear size 2-1/2 shoes. i think perhaps a lighter. knows not as large as ever, either grecian the roman but beautifully shaped. i'm decidedly the most beautiful of all your cousins. that -- she kicks things off soon after that letter was written on the fourth of july of 1861 by shooting a union soldier who threatened to raise a flag over her home and she was not standing for that. in addition to wanting a husband, some sort of agreement with her cousin, what does she want in this story? what does this character want in

this story? >> i think belle boyd woke up every day wanting something different. all of a pointed to what can i do to make myself more famous? which was a strange attitude for somebody who purported to be a spy. this is somebody who after she shoots the union soldier dead goes to work as a courier and spy for the confederate army but she is trying to hold the confederate army and gather and disseminate information that might be helpful in the battle she is trying to do what she can to bring attention to herself. she ends of getting attention from a very prominent individual. >> belle boyd was assessed with general stonewall jackson who was sort of a confederate boyfriend, my civil war boyfriend. stonewall jackson was interesting character, sort of a rock star of the civil war. there was a great story about him. he lives in the lobby of a hotel

in 1862 and women swarmed him. they ran after him down the us 3. if you is in the lobby, they followed him and keeping souvenirs can stonewall was great about this wishy said at this point ladies, ladies, this is the first time i was ever surrounded by the enemy. belle boyd was obsess with financial reporters she wanted to, quote, occupy his tent and share his danger. he spent quite a bit of time going after that. so belle boyd got another idol in her life, rose is another one of the main characters, a key figure in the confederate side of the story. talk a little bit about rose. >> rose was in a difficult position when the war broke out. five children with in four

years, she had lost her husband in a freak accident, she lost her financial stability and access to the white house in 20 years prior to the war she had access to democratic politicians, she had been an adviser depression buchanan so with the election of lincoln, all of that disappeared and she was desperate to regain this position, the influence she had wielded so in the -- when the confederate cabinet approached her and said would you be interested in running a confederate spy ring in washington d.c. the federal capital? rose disregarded the danger and said of course i want to do that and she immediately began cultivating sources by cultivating i mean sleeping with. and managed to better high number of union officials including senator henry wilson of massachusetts who was an abolitionist republican and the

chairman of lincoln's committee and military affairs a you can imagine that was interesting. she entertained these men in her home and the neighbors watched the men come and go and call her wild rose. was rare but rose knew what she was doing and was very serious about her intent to help the confederate army. >> out did belle boyd learn about rose because she wants to the rose. >> bell went to school in washington d.c. and had her suicidal debut and i love this story. she carved surname with her diamond in the window of preschool, belle boyd was here and it was before the war broke out so rose was still the head, a leading lady of washington society and invitations were the

most coveted in town and all the politicians that would go to her home and parties, this entertain both democratic and republican politicians and was quite influential across-the-board and if he admired rose an even more so after she became a prominent spy. so let's now move -- we of two of our four women, let's move to the union and talk a little bit about elizabeth. >> elizabeth van lew was the opposite of rose o'neal greenhow. use a union lady living in the confederate capital of richmond, the exact mirror situation. where rose was a celebrated beauty, elizabeth, one of her contemporaries said quote and she was never as pretty as a portrait showed. hy wish i had a portrait. >> they didn't have photoshop but they've figured some things out. >> but elizabeth was a staunch

abolitionist. was born and raised in richmond and spent a lot of time up north being educated and was under the care of an abolitionist government so when she came to richmond, she began freeing the family slaves. after the war broke out this was a dangerous position for her to have. she was a spinster who lives in this house on the hill with her mother but after the war broke out she was a traitor, a union sympathizer, somebody confederate detective started following closely. this was somebody who did not need to do anything. she was well taken care of. any idea what drove her? what motivated her? >> she was removed by the plight of slavery. she would go to the slave pens openly and she would write about this in her diary and bring prominent guests to richmond and say i need to show you what the

situation is and give to wars and be overwhelmed by how horrific the situation was and want her father pastor family had owned slaves. they needed to in order to be welcomed into richmond society the winter father passed she began freeing family sleeves and started spending her inheritance for the purpose of buying slaves just to free them so this was something near and dear to her and drove her throughout the war at the risk of her own life. what i found interesting about her which is related to this is her relationship with the african-american woman who worked in her home. talk a little bit about that. >> once elizabeth started assembling a union spy ring she recruited people from all walks of richmond society, but really she chose one person in particular to be the linchpin of this operation and that was mary jane bowser, a former family slave, freed her when she was young and she was a remarkable

woman. elizabeth sent her to be educated. it was against the law at the time to teach slaves to read or write comments and so elizabeth went to 3 nick davis, the confederate first lady and said i hear you need help. as a proper suddenly i am offering one of my servants that might assist you in your needs, she is not a smart woman, she's kind of bumbling but she might fit the bill for you for a while and mary jane bowser goes to the confederate white house and is tired and little does anyone know that mary jane is literate but also highly educated and has a photographic memory. so she is dusting jefferson davis's desks, she had sneaking peeks at papers on his desk and listening to confidential conversations and reporting every word back to elizabeth. >> i love that.

now we move on to frank. >> demo/frank who rounds out the union contingent in e-book. >> jenna edmonds actually has a tragic back story, she was a canadian whose father arranged a marriage for her hand she had seen what arrange a marriages said than, makes a miserable. emma was determined to have a life of adventure, she cut her hair, binder -- flees to the united states and once here she starts hearing about the abolitionist john brown and the drum beat of the civil war and she wants a piece of that. m1s to live a life of adventure associates lists in the union army in spring of 1861 and was remarkable how she gets away with that. the first thing that came to mind -- reading "rebel yell: the violence, passion, and redemption of stonewall jackson"'s book, wait a minute, didn't she have to take a physical? the first thing that comes up in

everybody's mind so how did that workout for her? >> she is quite nervous about it but the truth was the official protocol dictated all doctors had to conduct a pharaoh physical examination but doctors across the country found these roles. they needed to fill quotas. they needed bodies out there and didn't care somebody was prone to convulsions or had disease. they needed to have a finger to pull the trigger, enough to plot harder cartridges and just cared if somebody could march. they needed somebody who could do the job so the doctor should,'s hand and said what sort of living has this hand earned? with that she was passed into the army and became a a private. >> i love it. with these four women, and that has given as four very unique

personal liness with which to view the civil war. one of the things i liked his it is so balanced. when you were doing your research where there any other women you came across? how did you find and decide on these four women because it is such a great fit? was there somebody who would be great but -- or a wish i had found -- talk a little bit about landing and deciding on these four. >> there were plenty left on the cutting room floor. the civil war has numerous good characters and interesting people and there were two sisters i was interested in. i am always interested in devious sisters. ginny and lottie moon, two confederate ladies who like many southern ladies it all manner of goods and some of them across the lines and i think quite a few union men at the altar, they

not only -- jilted them at the altar and i wanted to find a way to fit them in but there wasn't enough for a nonfiction account. there just wasn't enough there and also some interesting male spies. you think the women were dealing with cross dressing. there was a fellow named jensen strengthfellow, a confederate spy for judge stewart and he was 94 pounds, had these lovely delicate features, blond hair and according to one of his comrades had a waste as wispy as a woman's and he would put on an elaborate down and call himself sally martin and go to union military balls and dance with the union soldiers and what is general grant to these days, and get information that way so there were devious people on both sides, both genders. frank/ammo was absolutely my favorite. do you have a favorite in the book? >> i like a mole for different

reasons. every time belle boyd appeared i started laughing but i appreciated emma edmonds's vulnerability, someone not only having to pretend she is a man, she is on the front lines, in the 0 bloodiest battles and also has a really excruciating personal story. a situation where she falls in love with a fellow union soldier and has to make the choice of delight suffer in silence? i love this man. to i suffer in silence for tell him what i really am. >> they were very close. >> i just appreciated her strength and vulnerability there. one of the things when i came across that part, i got very curious about this concept of women dressing as men noted to enlist in the army in the civil war and i found out it wasn't -- she was not the only one. were you surprised to learn that? >> was one of the most

surprising bits of research. there were 400 women who disguise themselves as planned fought in the north and south and fascinating how they got away with it. i came to the conclusion the biggest reason they got away with it was because no one knew what a woman would look like wearing pants. women's bodies, exaggerated shakes, the idea of a woman wearing pants little on an entire army was so unfathomable that people would just like no. that can't be a woman. so it was just that was one of the things that aided the women who did this and and listed as soldiers. >> talk a little about how they're different and offer these different perspectives. what do you think these four particular characters, these four women, what do they have in common? >> put together all of these

women who were involved in the civil war, it was the first time that woman took this sort of bold publicly in war. there were women revolutionary war spies that they were very discreet, they did not talk about this, not something they openly boasted about but with this in the civil war was the first time women made war their business and did so publicly. everybody was used to women were the victims of war, not perpetrators and it was the first time in american history women stepped forward and said this is what i am doing and i'm proud of it and i will do again. rebel women spitting and union soldiers, and during the combat of chamber pots on their heads, openly defying the northern government and saying i am a rebel woman and i will fight to the death for my cause and the union government had no idea what to do with this. there was a great quote from one lincoln officials, what we going to do with these fashionable women's bias? was a conundrum and followed

them throughout the war and there was a stance like that. >> one of the great things about these characters is a research you have done. they are incredibly fleshed out and they are not perfect. they are not perfect. they have flaws. a couple of them have fairly despicable, difficult views to deal with. a lot of age, a lot of sadness, but the choice is made to shows them, to show all of them, warts and all. talk about why you decided is that, why was important to include all of those aspects of these characters. >> they were products of their time. is important to me to portray them as they were. one was an atrocious racist and

said vile things about african-americans and i tried to understand where she was coming from. was a product of her time. enyart: had ever loving relationship with her own slave as much as you can in that situation. rose did not have that same affinity for the women who served her. i do think it boiled down to the difficulty of bringing she had had and not only that but her background. you find out a little bit into the book and i found this out later in my research rose's father when she was 4 years old had been murdered by his slave and that really fuelled her hatred and something that followed her and turned around her life. >> these women, all of them, you talk about this is the first time in history they stood up and said this is our war too, we are willing to fight, the

breathtaking an incredible risk and in a way you could almost argue greater risk than the men if only because they were doing something that was not expected at all from their gender in that time. how risky was what they were doing? >> it is incredibly risky. rose use 8-year-old daughter in her espionage -- only proved how devoted she was to the cause and and emma edmonds was living in the day with the threat of being discovered. she went undercover quite a few times. the risk of being discovered. every day she would hear more stories about women soldiers being discovered. my favorite one -- i have a couple favorites of that variety. one was that a woman forgot how to wear pants and started putting them on over her head. another, there was a couple in new jersey gave birth on picket

duty so the judge was up there. not only on the front lines and worried about getting shot or captured by confederates which happened to emily during the book but the idea of her getting caught and discovered as a woman and elizabeth was suffering death threats everyday and confederate detective spying on her and these are women who believed they were going to be hanged if and they wrote that in their diaries, i am going to be strong by the gallows if anybody finds this. >> there was an element of the trail in a sense in what they were doing. emma edmonds was the train everything that was supposed to be associated with what it meant to be a union soldier. you were supposed to be a man, anyone who is a spy is always in a position where they can be

viewed as someone who is the training confidence. they did suffer consequences. this did not go smoothly for these four women all the time. some of the consequences, unfortunate consequences they suffered. >> as i said earlier the union government not only did not know what to do with them but they were reluctant to make the rubble women into confederate martyrs. they thought that that would only exacerbate conditions when they were trying to quell the rebellion and also cause complications with europe. the confederate government was interested in getting europe to recognize its legitimacy and the union government did not want europe to recognize its legitimacy said another wrinkle. they didn't know what to do with the confederate women and where they might have handed them and certainly their behavior would have warranted hanging. they put him in prison and tortured them the best way they knew how. and there were quite different experiences in prison and that

was due to the different levels of how the union officials took them and rose o'neal greenhow suffered in prison quite a bit and had a difficult time and came near death on a cup locations. >> what was the style of treatment for rose o'neal greenhow versus belle boyd please >> one was in prison and union officials torture her. she was well-known by them. >> was well known. >> this was not some anonymous woman. >> i should back up a minute and discuss what made rose so well known? what got her into prison? rose after she formed her spy ring it was in july of 1861 and the first battle of bull run which was going to be an enormous battle, everyone was predicting this would be that end of the war. on the union's side we will capture that bull run and move

on to richmond and the war will be over. the confederate tad different plans and rose o'neal greenhow after jumping into bed with barry became an official and gathering requisite information, she summoned the 16-year-old carrier to her home named betty duval and sit her down at her dresser and rose had to fight her and has a piece of black silk and ties of the note and makes a neat little bun. end says exactly. so many dispatches. >> an important mission. >> pretend you are simple farmer of passing from the market, won't knows the deal. and wave to the union and what a pretty girl. and general beauregard's

headquarters, and the jury is made of hair and produces this note she and seifert and therein contained very important information for the first battle of bull run which aided the confederates. actors that, and she becomes public enemy number one to the union. and all of these other characters and elements from the moment in history that enter, what are some others? >> pinkerton was a name one and i was surprised by his involvement. and secret service where, the biggest ego of anybody, just as interested in advancing his -- the interest that bell was.

pinkerton -- this is public enemy number one. and the great theme where there's one torrential downpour, and detectives on lafayette square in d.c.. select to save her home wasn't rifle distance of the white house. she called lincoln st. gone. in rival distance of say in. and stands on detective soldiers, looks in the window and what does he see the rose and the trader sitting on a couch looking over fortifications and maps and then the two start passionate making out. ..

>> there were many cartoons that celebrated confederate women, in particular their ability to smuggle things across the lines in cent lin. and if anybody doesn't know, this is this rigid cage-like structure that could structure a diameter of six feet. so you could imagine the volume of things that you could attach to this. people attached coffee, sabers, pistols, packages of guilt braid, silk, boots, several pairs of boots at a time. and belle boyd was sort of the queen of smuggling. there was a report from the 28th pennsylvania that they were missing 14 muskets and about 200 sabers -- [laughter] and it was all the doing of belle boyd. so that was quite an enterprise.

[laughter] >> so here you are, you're a, you're a pennsylvania girl, you know, living in atlanta who sees a jefferson davis bumper sticker and ends up in this world of the civil war. what was your, what was your view or your experience with civil war history prior to working on this book? >> nothing. absolutely nothing. i sort of started from scratch, and i appreciated that because i came to it not expecting to find anything, not knowing what i would find and was quite pleased and fascinated by what i did find, especially the way women's roles changed and the way the war changed women's roles. you know, you fall into that rabbit hole of research when you're doing nonfiction, and one of those rabbit holes of research that i stayed in quite a bit longer than i should have, i probably spent, you know, i wasted a good bit of time

finding out about how courtship rituals changed during the civil war. >> how did they change? [laughter] >> well, i will tell you, denise. prior to the civil war in the antibell lumbar years, it was quite a rigorous process for a marriage to happen. a prospective mate would require a letter of introduction -- >> from a cousin, perhaps. >> yes, from a cousin -- >> a cousin with perfect feet. if you're interested -- [laughter] >> always a selling point. >> yes. >> but, in the letter of introduction, meeting the parents, neighbors, acquaintances, chaperoned dates that would last for years before you could even think about being engaged and then moving on to marriage. but after the war, you know, when the or war broke out, all of that changed. southern parents had to loosen the rules. everybody was gone. and the women, it gave them a newfound freedom, but it also gave them more likelihood of heartbreak in real relationships -- >> [inaudible]

>> exactly. they went off to confederate camps, and before whereas, you know, they didn't have -- they had the formal letters of introduction, now they were going off with men whose names they didn't even know and being serenaded, and all of these scandalous behaviors that would never happen before the war. of course, southern women only admitted to flirting in their diaries, but quite a bit more happened, and a lot more sexual intimacy. and, you know, after the war 60,000 widows were left, 60,000 widows and didn't have any expectations of getting married. and my favorite was all the women who said, you know, i don't care. i'll be an old maid, it doesn't matter to me. and it was the first time a generation of women did not expect to marry and carry on the tradition of their mothers and grandmothers. >> you started, you know, sort of with a blank slate with this book. how did your views about this moment in history sort of evolve as you went from, you know, interest through research through writing? >> you know, it was -- one of

the most startling aspects was also interesting and actually gratifying, how women could, you know, you would think of women as the weaker sex, and they exploited that idea. they exploited the idea of women being gentle and sort of slow and not educated and weaker and genteel. and their gender was a physical and a psychological disguise. while they were hiding everything up in their buns and hoop skirts, it was also manager they could hide behind -- something they could hide behind, just the idea women were not capable of this treasonous behavior, and there are some great scenes where detectives would april approach the women and accuse them and -- would actually approach the women and accuse them, and the women's response was how dare you accuse me of such behavior, it's beneath the conduct of an officer and a gentleman, and i am a defenseless woman, and you are insulting a defenseless woman -- >> hiding a pistol in my boot. >> yeah.

and i will shoot you right now. [laughter] but, of course, these women were anything but defenseless. and just the fact that they were able to exploit society's notions of the weaker sex, i thought, was quite brilliant. >> you have often written about these intrepid, often unsung women and their roles and significant moments in history. you started out in journalism. did you always want to write about women? was that manager you sort -- was that something you sort of thought to do or fell into it? >> my grandmother, who's 96, always tells me the dirtiest stories i know. [laughter] and she's the one who sort of not only led me to a 19th century brothel -- [laughter] but the famous, most famous stripper of the 20th century. you know, when you think of the word "maverick," you always think of men. you think of male characters, james dean, malcolm x, even the late, great james garner. but i like to find, you know, women mavericks.

mavericks with vaginas. [laughter] that's sort of my override, if you want to call it that. [laughter] >> how would you compare this to your former books which were also about mavericks with vaginas? [laughter] >> you know, they all have one theme, it's just i like to write about women whose lives i wish i'd lived. i'm jealous of all of them. and the next best thing is to sit at my computer and dig into their psyches and prod and poke until they start speaking to me, and it's always a thrill when they do. >> you're talking about the prodding and the poking and the researching, going down the rabbit hole, do you find that you have distinct phases to the process? okay, now i'm researching, and now i'm going to write, now i'm going to edit, or do you have overlap in how you operate? and was the process for this book any different in any way than for the prior two books? >> um, i think you probably agree with me that being a journalist yourself, i have to research and write at the same time. >> yeah. >> yeah.

if i -- i know plenty of authors who have to do all their research first, and they gather and they hoard -- >> keep finding things. >> i know. and i would research happily for ten years and not write a word, i would just research for the rest of my life and never write. but, you know, that getses you in trouble with your editor. [laughter] they don't like that. >> journalists need deadlines. that's how we function. >> yeah. so i think it's a function of journalism where i have to write and research at the same time, and also it saves you -- you figure out what's important and vital to the story, you know? you go down a rabbit hole of research, but you allow yourself to pull back and say, okay, that's an interesting tidbit, but i can't spend the next four months on that, unfortunately. >> you do such a great job of capturing their voices. what kinds of resources did you come across in all this while you were in the rabbit hole? >> you know, i kind of went all over for this one. i went to the national archives where they have rosa c.'s correspondence which was

thrilling. the black scrap of silk that she wrapped up the dispatch in, that was at the national archives, and i was able to hold that in my hands, ask just to know that a confederate spy had held this 150 year withs earlier was thrilling. the same thing with elizabeth, i found some of her death threats. please give us some of your blood to write with -- >> we'll just take it for you. >> yeah. how chilling that must have been for her to get, and i was chilled by it how many years later. and i also spoke with one of the descendants of her brother, and he gave me some information about her ring that had never been told before, published before, so that was pretty thrilling. and i spent quite a bit of time at reenactment which is always -- >> oh, talk a little bit about that. a question that would come up because, you know, through abbott's book and through the kind of curiosity it spawned in me, so the cross dressers in

both genders were not unusual -- >> yeah. >> did you ever encounter anyone at any of these reenactments who was a woman being a man or a man being a woman during a reenactment? >> you know what? i did not, but i read an article soon after i finished my research where women had to fight for the right to reenact as men. but they didn't -- >> but they were doing it in the actual -- >> right. yeah. >> oh, my gosh. >> there was a movement. apparently, it was not immediately accepted that women reenactors could dress and fight as men. they wanted them to wear the hoop skirts and play the traditional women roles, and these women were like, no, we want to be the women soldiers. we want to reenact as women soldiers. so there was a movement afoot for that to happen. so that was pretty interesting. and also the act pronhls at these events. i went to see the first battle of bull run in july of 2011

reenactment, and there was a man there with his 10-year-old son, and the man says to him, hey, look, there's stonewall jackson by the power lines. [laughter] so, you know, you've got -- [laughter] you've got to love that. >> grab your iphone, take a picture. >> oh, they all were, yes. of course. >> of course. oh, my -- >> their lattes. [laughter] >> fantastic. wow. so it's, abbott's book is just so, it's so compelling, it's such a great read. its reads like fiction, so let's talk about the f word -- [laughter] >> yeah. >> -- fiction. is it something you ever considered doing? i mean, this is such a huge part of what you've done for so long now. is it something you think about? is it something that -- >> um, for the next book maybe but definitely not for this one. the material was all there. i mean, i have 50 pages of end notes and spent five years researching this book, and, you

know, a couple -- you know, i talk in my author's note the self-mythologizing that went on in the civil war in some memoirs. and to me, it was important to me to point out those instances in the narrative and also in the end notes. and to me, it's just as important what people embellish and what they leave out as what they actually did in a way. and i vet the sources as much as possible. and also leave in those anecdotes, though, that they blow up, and i explain why they blew them up, why they embellished them, and it's important to examine that. it says something about their psyche, about their role in the war, and it's part of their story. and i think it's just as legitimate in a way as the official be records of the war -- official records of the war of the rebellion which i also consulted extensively. so to me, it's just sort of -- you know, those memoirs are a small part of a large body of research that i was lucky enough to have access to for a book like this. >> well, it comes together so

terrifically. we have time -- >> well, thank you. >> we have time for some questions for abbott. does anybody have any questions? >> i do. >> yes? >> i thought the interesting thing you mentioned about the southern matriarchs being created from the civil war? don't you think that also -- it's more of a comment, i guess, and maybe you can comment upon it. the southern gothic -- the women, the women in the southern gothic writing so prevalent compared to other writing. that has to be a product of the civil war as well, i mean, maybe? i don't know. >> i think that's probably true. i hi the whole landscape -- i think the whole landscape of women changed in the years after the war, you know? even some of the spies started moving towards women's suffrage. it just changed the entire landscape of women's roles and how they viewed their roles, and i think people took notice of that, and that's steeped in everything including southern

gothic literature, definitely. >> [inaudible] primarily by a lot of women writers i think, especially in the modernist movement. >> yes. no, it's an interesting point. >> thank you. >> yes. >> can you tell me the process you came up with the title? >> oh. >> it's a great title. >> yeah. it was pretty torturous. my writer friends can attest, i would send out e-mails saying this is it, this is the title. and they'd be like, no, no, that is not the title. and i think that in the end we wanted manager that tried to en-- something that tried to encapsulate all four women on something that they all were, and i thought -- also something that would be recognizable and play on a very manly book and very manly movie and a very, you know, i love john la clay, and i just thought it would be fun to tweak that a little bit and just, you know, infuse it with a little bit of the woman's perspective and just sort of, you know, say that this is the

women's side of that kind of story. >> leslie, you were the publisher who fleshed out the title it -- >> i was in the collaborative process. i sent me mails to my editor, and he ignored them rightfully. [laughter] he's like, i'm not even going to grace that one with a response. i was trying desperately to come up with a close from hawthorne, he covered the war quite extensively, and walt whit match. i thought those were -- whitman, those were great snippets of quotes from those writers, and they were like, no, no, that's not would recollecting. [laughter] -- that's not working. finally, we came up with this, and it all kind of clicked. >> yes. >> a reading request? >> okay. >> can you read us the description that you did of stonewall jackson? >> oh, sure. >> that's a lovely one. >> page 138. [laughter]

>> it's on 138? >> so we have a request for abbott's description of stonewall jackson. page 138. [laughter] >> i'll remind people that this is belle's, belle's love, her imagined love, and she spends quite a bit of time -- >> talking about his feet. >> yeah. [laughter] i don't think his feet were as pretty as hers. but, okay. stonewall jackson had just turned 38 years old and looked, some said, more scarecrow than human with eerily bright blue eyes and a mangy brown mass of beard. his preferred uniform consisted of a threadbare single-breasted coat, a broken binder to conceal his eyes and an oversized pair of flop top boots for his size 14 feet. his horse, fancy, whom everyone else called little sorrell, stood only 15 hands high, and jackson rode him with his feet drawn up so as to avoid dragging

them on the ground. he spoke seldom and almost never laughed. on the rare occasions when he did, he tossed back his head, let his mouth gape open and made no sound whatsoever. [laughter] once an injured northerner captured by jackson's men asked to be lifted up to catch a glimpse of the general. he stared for a moment and then in a tone of disbelief and disgust exclaimed, oh, my god, lay me down. [laughter] jack soften was add his -- jackson was as idiosyncratic as he was brilliant. he thought of himself as being, quote, out of balance and even under fire would stop to raise one arm to establish equilibrium. he refused to eat pepper because it made his left leg weak. a partial deafness in one ear often made it difficult for him to determine the direction artillery fire came. convinced that every one of his organs was malfunctioning, he

self-medicated with a variety of concoctions, ingesting a number of ammonium preparations. twice a day, rain or shine, jackson slipped away from camp and found a secluded field. he perched on the edge of a fence and prayed for an hour, hands clasped, tears spilling, mouth forming noiseless words, a ritual that may or may not have had something to do with the recurring fear that he was possessed. he was reluctant even to read a letter there his wife whom he called my little dove on sundays. he considered himself a genuine and ardent admirer of true womanhood and was said to nebraska pass a -- never to pass a lady without tipping his filthy cap. he was utterly unfazed by the prospect of murder or death. he would have had a man shot at the drop of a hat, and he would drop it himself. [laughter]

he ordered the execution by firing squad of a soldier, a father of four, for assaulting a man of higher rank. the general prayed over the incident and found, as he always did, that god's will matched up with his own. [laughter] during one battle he inquired sharply about a missing courier and was told that the young man had been killed. very commendable, very commendable, jackson muttered soberly, and put the matter out of his mind. [laughter] [applause] >> that's my boyfriend. >> that's your boyfriend. >> it's interesting to me how these myths and these personas about these individuals built up in that particular time in history. what role did the media play in this, in this war? in revolutionary times and even after the revolutionary war when the battle was going on about taking on the u.s. constitution, the newspapers were very opinionated. >> yeah. >> i mean, they were -- there was not, no one even pretended

to try and be objective. it was we're on this side, we're on that side. what role did the newspapers play in, you know, the development of the legend of someone like stonewall jackson? >> yeah. i think the reporters, the newspapers, first and foremost, their duty was to convince everybody that they were the ones that were winning, you know? they wanted to put out propaganda that their side was winning, every battle had different numbers according to the north and according to the south. and that was the first and foremost what they wanted everybody to think. and then they would move into personalities. and belle boyd, actually, got quite a lot of press. in the south she was a hero. she might have been strange and eccentric, but she was a hero. in the north she was an accomplished prostitute, and it's kind of strange, you know, this is a 17-year-old girl, an accomplished prostitute, and she was somebody to, you know, wandering through the camps, and they said we have no idea why they let her wander through our camps, and no doubt she's doing

a lot of damage. and yet people would read these reports, and belle boyd would still continue to wander throughout the camps. and i think one of the greatest sort of pieces of propaganda can, there was a lot of reports about the par barrism -- barbarism of the confederates, how brutal they were, how barbaric. women wearing jewelry made of yankee bones and necklaces made of yankee teeth and all of these sorts of things. the confederates, all the southerners were very angry. the union had been starving them of supplies with the blockade. hence, the smuggling business we discussed earlier. and it was sort of the idea that these people were so brutal, and there was a little bit of truth to it. there were some women wearing confederate -- excuse me, yankee jewelry, but it was all exaggerated mostly, and each side sort of played for the best effect and also was also constantly in mind of what europe was thinking as europe,

watching the newspapers, and they were very carefully. so that was always in the back of their minds too. >> so interesting. do we have any, do we have any other questions? no? >> [inaudible] >> okay, yes. glenn? >> the memoirs that you read, which for whatever reason had the most influence on you? >> oh, influence. >> which one had the most influence, yeah. >> i don't know about influence -- >> or you town that -- found that you, i don't know, had the most impact any way or the other. >> i really appreciated the memoir when she went to europe to lobby for the confederacy, she wrote quite a bit about her journeys meeting european dignitaries and royalty including napoleon iii. so you can imagine this woman who, you know, had never before been to europe and sort of lobbying on behalf of her country, and it was sort of a

last gasp effort. she was the last hope. and it was interesting to read about her frustration at this process. and at some point everything was stupid. [laughter] she wrote, you know, my meeting with napoleon was stupid, these people were stupid,this party was stupid, and all the women were fat and ugly. [laughter] and i stood next to them as long as possible so we could compare and everybody could say that they were fat and ugly compared to me. [laughter] and it was sort of this glimpse into her psyche where here's this dignified woman who presented a very regal picture and was always business, always serious and always had her goal in mind, and she was clearly falling apart. she was somebody who was at her own personal, you know, the confederacy was everything to her x it was falling through her hands. and just to read her words about, you know, it boiled down to something like, "this is stupid." it just sort of, you know, it made it universal. everybody has that thought that something is stupid, and it just

sort of was really interesting to find that that was her last commentary on that. >> it meant so much to her at all, one of the great things about abbott's book is it really does come across how much this conflict meant in different ways to each one of these characters. thank you. >> thank you. >> for being with us. >> thank you for having me. [applause] >> this is booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here's our prime time lineup. tonight at 7 p.m. eastern, deborah roadie comments on issues facing women today and questions if the women's movement is powerful enough to address them. at eight, mark whitaker reports on comedian bill cosby's political activism and education philanthropy. at 9 p.m., retired four-star general wesley clark weighs in on america's superpower status. linda taratto remembers living paycheck to paycheck and argues for the need to assist america's

poor on "after words" at 10 p.m. eastern. and wrapping up our prime time programming at 11, jack cashill takes a critical look at president obama. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> so the package is this one piece of debt that i follow through the book, and it's, i think, helpful to understand that when i talk about debt that's being bought and sold here, we're really just talking about an excel spread sheet. so you have the big banks or creditors, and they try for, say, six months to collect on a debt that's not been paid, and when they can't, they'll typically sell it off for pennies on the dollar to debt buyers, and they will collect whatever they can and sell to the next and the next and the next. and what they're selling is, just as they said, a spread sheet with bare bones information. >> is this information on customers, their balances, where they live? what kind of information? >> yeah. so it will have