cliche blood is thicker than water, and i think it really holds in the case of, well certainly the maltby brothers. my book then, "the maltby brothers' civil war," concerns three of these brothers. henry maltby, he was the second brother, second son of david maltby from ohio, and he he originally came to texas. he wanted to establish the newspaper "the ranchero," so that was when the younger brother, william came down here. and referring to the older brother, jasper maltby he has no linkage whatsoever with texas. jasper maltby also from the north, wound up in, of all places galena, illinois. and he had served in the mexican war, and he became a gunsmith in

galena. later, he becomes one of the nine galena generals who served the union during the civil war. so it's quite a remarkable family. their relationship was very, very close, even with the war and the divisions and the fact that we have one brother, jasper faithfully serving as far as the initially a colonel in the 45th illinois regiment and then having the two brothers down here in texas firmly committed to the southern cause secession and then, of course, the civil war. jasper edelman maltby was a true hero. we have letters from generals grant, logan and other union generals expressing their great esteem and respect for this

individual who, during the battle of fort donaldson in 1863, he suffered from a tremendous injury in all too. and eventually, eventually recovered from this and was able to serve during the siege of vicksburg. and during that siege before the city was eventually taken, there was an attempt to build a tunnel, if you will, underneath the confederate fortification fort hill. and when the explosion occurred there was the 45th illinois led by its then-colonel jasper maltby. and there was a terrible incident in which he was struck by a timber and suffered such interim injuries -- internal injuries that eventually that would lead to his death. william maltby became the captain of an artillery battery

that actually wound up on mustang island. it was concerned with local defense of the coastline in corpus christi, of course. so in november of 1863, there was, in fact, a very, very large union army that had taken over brownsville, and then that unit from that army moved up in november of 1863 to capture key points along the coast. they were headed to corpus christi, they were headed up toward indianola, and eventually they intended to get to galveston. so at fort sims -- now it's out there on the tip of mustang island -- so this large army

then of union soldiers wound up actually capturing, taking fort sims and capturing the entire garrison including captain william maltby. what happened to william and the other prisoners were taken, and they were sent to new orleans. by this time jasper, because of the seriousness of his wounds and all, had been -- he had been appointed commandant of the vicksburg garrison. and when he found out that his brother william was down in new orleans, he immediately arranged that william be brought up to vicksburg to be his ward. so i can only imagine, we can only imagine the, you know, the emotion involved in the two brothers, one in the blue uniform of the brigadier general, and the other in the gray uniform of the confederate captain. in fact, that's where my book begins, because this is such a

stirring emotional incident that i wanted to brick it to the -- bring it to the attention of the readers right from the start. and that meant for the next several months before he was finally exchanged william, captain william maltby confederate states army then is spending time in vicksburg at the ward of his brother, jasper. so it must have been very interesting, the conversation. and the older brother, i'm sure trying to get his brother to take the oath of allegiance to the united states. and then, of course, he would be, he would be released. but he refused to do so along with other prisoners who were eventually exchanged and only then were they allowed to return back to texas and there would have been the reunion of william maltby with his wife and by this time also he had an infant child as well. i think it's a very, very important story that people

people would find of great interest, because it is a personal story about these brothers. the civil war was so much more than just the blood and gore and the battles and all campaigns, you know? there's so much interest there too, yes. but also let's get into the personal side of the war. the maltby brothers are a good example of what we need another side of the civil war to look at. >> during booktv's recent visit to corpus christi, texas we talked with the color of "claiming citizenship," anthony quiroz, who recounts mexican-americans and their fight for civil rights in victoria texas. >> i think that american history itself is a story of citizenship and who's a citizen and who's not and who decides. and so for mexican-americans the story of our history has

been this ongoing struggle for e equality, for inclusion. my book looks at the period from about 1940 through the mid 1980s, and i examine the different ways in which mexican-americans in victoria texas, struggled to become equal citizens. so i look at their baer in the churches -- behavior in the churches political action, schools and their private organizations, those sorts of things to find examples of ways in which these people tried to, as i say in the title claim citizenship. victoria, texas, is a town about 60 miles north of here between corpus christi and eastern texas. today the city is integrating, but back then i'll give you some examples, there was an organization in the state called the good neighbor commission, and they were supposed to investigate charges of discrimination, and they had a very thick file of vim that tour charges from victoria county. and so you still have, again some discrimination, but not to

the same extent you did back then. laws have changed, the civil rights act of 1964 made a big difference. so things have sort of evolved. but 1940s victoria texas, was very, very different. it was much more racially segregated, a lot more racially tension. you could -- tension. you could go places but, for example, you couldn't date interracially. it was probably unhealthy. i had a crush on a girl in high school. i won't give you her name, but her father was a local policeman whose nickname was "nightstick." to i never asked her -- so i never asked her out, but that's just kind of a sense of what things were like. to give you an example of the institutional discrimination i'm looking at the independent victoria school district. and when i went to high school to public high school in 1974 '75, '76, i went to a school with about 400 students -- 2400 student, and i think there were three mexican-american teachers.

well that's more mexican-american teachers than i'd seen in my life. what i learned when i researched this book was they had been hired two years priestly. there had been done. so institutional racism. and when i was looking at school district records, i found a note from one official to the superintendent saying "i interviewed this woman she's hispanic speaks english clearly, may be all right to teach anglo children." and i wondered well where's the note that says this woman's anglo, she may be okay to teach mexican children? but that's not how it worked. institutional racism. mexicans didn't get promoted. they got hired at the plants as laborers. never got moved into management, never got moved into operator positions. now they do. so that's the kind of institutional racism that they faced. a lot of the literature focusing on mexican-american history focuses on the demonstrations, the chicano movement, you know, the anti-vietnam war

demonstrations. you didn't have much of that in victoria. people tried to bring about change by voting, by suing by holding meetings with, you know local business leaders. it was very much a sort of consensual view of american citizenship. let me kind of explain that to you for a second. so when i first started researching this as a dissertation, i was a grad student at the university of iowa. i'd been through all these classes, and i thought, well now i know what to look for. clearly, there must have been a story like this in victoria. nothing. not even a little baby bit. so i'm looking, and i'm finding no evidence of overt resistance. what i found was subtle resistance. so here's the point: these folks were very consensual. they were patriotic americans. so they bought into more than values practices, traits and beliefs, you know? if we talk about citizenship it's where you were born, what country are you loyal to, that

sort of thing. but there's a whole list of unwritten rules that define citizenship; your race your gender your class, your level of education, where you live your religion. if you're an atheist, you're not getting elected to office. so there's a whole spate of qualifications that are never written down and you're never taught this in school. but it matters. so what i found was these folks were trying to lay claim to those same things. so they bought into values like patriotism, hard work catholicism, family values. all the sorts of things that i grew up learning white society had claimed as their own invention, that's not true at all. it cuts across all different groups. and that was part of what angered me so much. and as i was writing that book even though these folks were not as radical as i'd sort of imagines they might be boy, they were -- imagined they might be boy, they were very seriously struggling to change that status quo.

people disagree with this, but there's a segment of historians who think about mexican-american history generationally. so we look at the 1800s as a conquered generation. that's when mexico became, you know was taken over by the u.s. 1900-1930 is the immigrant generation. mexican revolution 1910 1920 you know? a million people moved north. through that time most people who lived here saw themselves as mexicans who happened to live in america. 1920-ish to 1960 we have the mexican-american generation. now people see themselves as americans who happen to be mexican. those are the folks that created the ideology that i describe in this book. very american very patriotic, very much, very much buy -- they very much buy into traditional values. chicanos wanted to reject all that. to them mexicans were workers. they're brown, we're not white.

we want to reject americanism. hence, not mexican-american, not spanish-american, chicano. and they looked at people from this generation or people with these ideas as traitors, as sellouts. how can you turn your back? one of the arguments they made was how can you support the american military that's over in this vietnam killing people like you? -- in vietnam killing people like you? whereas people in the military were saying, no we're defending the american way. yes, two very different peoples that look at the world a different way. over time the chicano movement left a legacy. there's still some of that ideology around, but i would make the case really what you have today as you look around the country is some blend of that mexican-american generation's ideology and the chicano ideology. but what they've developed into is more of a still a rather

consensual kind of world view. things have changed since then. you see many more interracial couples, you have somewhat more integrated schools. you do see more elected officials that are mexican-american. but there's still a long, long way to go. first of all, i don't think our story's being told at all, not very much. ..