do was reduce the layer that they used because they had nothing better. live today on american history tv on c-span3 five civil war historians make their case for 1862's person of the year. the all-day forum from the museum of the confederacy ends the day with an audience vote. you can join in with your calls and tweets live saturday 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. who do you think was the most influential person of 1862? make your nomination and share your comments on our facebook page. or promote your candidate and ask questions on twitter. @cspanhistory. you're looking at the cover

of the atlantic special commemorative issue on the civil war. this edition contains some 50 pieces of reporting, essays and archives and an introduction by president obama. the magazine covers the runup to the civil war, the war itself and after war period. as you can see, some of the writer's feature include mark twain, ralph waldo emerson and many others. joining us to talk about the issue is deputy editor scott stossel. >> thanks for having us. >> before we delve into the issue itself, let's talk about the atlantic. the atlantic has a great history that goes back to the civil war. how does abolition and the abolitionist movement play into the founding of the magazine? >> we had a wonderful time

putting this issue together probably because we love these pieces so much and it gave us an opportunity to reconnect with the founding history of the magazine. the atlantic was published its first issue in november 1857 in boston. the magazine was basically created by a group of writers who came together with two fundamental purposes, one to capture what they saw an emerging american voice and letters, including their own voices, some of them including the writers you named. the other was to abolish slavery. they were very committed abolitionists. in 1857 this was a very radical idea still. they were interested in promoting the founding magazine what they called the american idea. they didn't exactly define what they meant. but they regarded slavery as ant thet cal. >> in james's opening comments in the magazine, he mentions the article is original and for many

years were published anonymously. why was that? >> well, the tradition of the time. authorship was much less of an important thing than it is now. but just to add to something that james said, the magazine was founded to sort of espouse and develop the american idea. at the time the country was still young enough, it's 1857, less than 100 years old. sort of always looking back over our shoulder at europe. what is the distinctive american voice? also we talk now about the partisanship of politics and they realized anything we post would have more credibility if itounding document associated with the magazine put it of no party or something we espouse and embody today. but the one exception to that, as far as the editor is clique,

except where it concerned slavery, in fact. in doing t couple piling this collection of essays we discovered our first staff political writer actually quit because the founding editor kept -- anything that he wrote the editor would end up inserting a couple of passages arguing for the abolition of slavery. >> that's a good point to leave off in the commemoration of this narrative. james bennett refers in his opening comments as the unoffic archivist. what was it like going back into the archives to put this all together. >> you just addressed a miss perception. it is my mr. sage stossel. but i work closely with her. and between the two of us, my sister and myself, we've been associated with the magazine for many years. my sister sage has a deep intimate familiarity with the archives going back tofounder.

so when we set out to compose this we knew -- theerpublicatio probably you can count on three fingers the number of magazines that exist today that were still publishing in 1857. >> yeah. >> so this is -- this is one of the things that feels very special and something we need to honor. going back to 1857 we're actually able to -- "time" magazine, "the new yorker", many of these great publications weren't there on the ground so it was a real sort of labor of love and great fun to go back. actually, we had to be fairly rigorous and sometimes make painful decisions to excise because you can only include so much in a magazine of this size. basically we went back and we looked and tried to pick what

the best and most interesting but a representative sampling that tell a narrative story and beyond. >> the hard part was deciding whatnot to include. there was one moment we found ourselves dropping walt whitman from the issue. scott and i looked at each other like we have the opportunity to publish walt whitman and we're not going to put him in our civil war issue? and we brought the piece back in. >> 24 must have been a multiyear. you saw this coming with 150th. >> we should say we had a wonderful collaboration with the national gallery in putting this issue together. we used photography from the portrait gallery for the issue. so we had a great partnership with them. >> well, let's start with portraiture and a picture of abraham lincoln next to an

introduction by president obama. how did it become involved in the commemorative issue? was it coincidental he chose to refer to this photograph in his comments, or were you planning on using this in your front cover all along? >> we were planning on using it as the cover. once the curators showed us this rarely scene portrait of lincoln, it's i think a stunning photograph, portrait taken late before lincoln was assassinated. gardener worked with a large giant negative and after he took this picture of lincoln he removed the negative and dropped it and cracked it. there's a crack running through his forehead. he reassembled the plate and pulled one off it which is this photograph which hangs in the national gallery. and we were hopeful that the president might want to contribute something to this issue. so we did intend to make it the cover all along and we sent him

a copy via the press office and just asked for his meditation on this picture. what did it make him think of, lincoln or the state of the union. what metaphors did the crack suggest? it. >> was quite poignant to get back to this response that the president talked about how when he is in moments of having to make difficult decisions he will actually go to look at the portraits on the wall that hang in the white house of president lincoln and pull his books off the shelf and really look at his words for inspiration and solace. and i was struck, too when you read through the issue, obviously what lincoln was having to deal with with the potential dissolution of the union and major issues like prosecuting a major war that was the most lethal as far as

american casualties. but in some ways the sorts of decision-making and about how aggressively to push emancipation, something that he very greatly desired. but he had to be thinking about the politics of losing his backers in the north and in some ways there are parallels who what current presidents, including president obama, have to deal with. >> let's stick with lincoln for a minute. a combination of two, the recollections of lincoln. first of all, who was henry vallard? he writes several times about his offense, taking offense at the nature of president lincoln's crude jokes. >> one of president's obama's observations about the photograph is it compels you to see past the icon to the man and to recognize lincoln essential humanity, the strain the war had taken. there was a real flesh and blood person behind this. what i think what we both love about that vallard piece is he

gives you the man in full. he covered the lincoln/douglas debate. so he got to know link object on the stump when lincoln was an unknown, one-term congressman from illinois who had come back to run for senate and compete with douglas. and he sounds every bit the hard bitten, jaded political reporter. you hear one lincoln/douglas debate and you've heard them all. his attitude toward lincoln he said he called him embarrassment, he was so uncoasrse and uncouth. you could never pin him down on succession. but lincoln was arguing for the preservation of the union. but if you really pushed him on what would you do about it, he would never give you a straight answer. >> that's one of the great things about seeing history unfold from the perspective of the journalists who were there.

150 years later, lincoln rightfully is on this enormous pedestal. and the reality was day to day he was having to engage in all the petty diplomacy -- i love the vallard portrait. he wrote it in 1902 reflecting on having spent time with him in the late 1850s. >> with a great deal of clarity. it's very sharp. >> as james says, he's offended and repeatedly says, you know, this guy is the president of the united states and he has this remarkable, uncontrollable propensity for making dirty jokes and body comments and he seems unbecoming of a president. >> he does acknowledge he turned out to be one of the great leaders of men in adversity. sort of completely miss judged him. >> completely. there's one quote -- it's before 1858. lincoln as a state legislator aspiring to become a congressman

or senator. he said my wife keeps thinking that i could be president of the united states. can you believe a bumpkin like me, a sucker like me becoming a president? >> the the moment scott describes, again, it's just a wonderful anecdote, i think. he describes getting caught with lincoln in a summer rainstorm and sheltering with him in a freight car. so he's just sitting with the man. he has no notion could ever be president of the united states hearing lincoln laugh -- this is his wife's ambition for him. i sort of suspect that lincoln is spinning vallard at that moment and say, oh, my wife thinks i can be president. of course i have no such ambition myself. as scott says you have the sense as you move through the issue, how plastic this moment was in american history. the nation was being formed but also history could have gone in

very different directions at every point. and also how modern so much of it feels. the relationship of the writers to the subject, the actual politicians, their efforts to communicate and get their messages heard. a lot of very familiar types. >> yes. as editors now, you have -- again, looking back through the sort of mist of history, you think there was this great moral purity. and there was and the goal that lincoln and abolitionists were working through. but the way they got there was manipulation of the media. and a number of instances we were struck by where he talks about you have instances of lincoln talking to his aides and to reporters about maybe you should play -- there's one case where somebody wants to write a story for "the liberator," a northern abolitionist paper. he said i think it might be better placed in the atlantic. even then the way i'm sure the current presidents think, how is this going to be received.

at one point he received, just as today, president obama will bring in, you know, david brooks and conservative columnists or bring in frank rich and liberal economists and try to spin them, he did the same thing. ralph waldo emerson comes into the oval -- the white house and lincoln talks to him. you know, i think as a result of that actually maybe increases the intensity with which he is pursuing the writing of the emancipation proclamation. >> paul revere's ride, this edition, how does that tie into the abolition movement and the civil war? >> the irony is it is superficially a heroic of the midnight ride and the revolution war. the context was longfellow was always -- he himself was sort of a timid guy and weary of

engaging in politics. he had become very good friends with massachusetts governor sumner, out spoken abolitionist. in the 1850s through 1860s, longfellow was taken up with abolition and the&slavery. so he infused with this passion i have to do something about this and he had several years earlier written some poetry about slavery. but here's thethe midnight ridee is this ride that he took to warn the red coats were coming. it is really the moral passion that infuses it is about ending slavery and the cause of the union. so if you read it through and actually jill lepore goes into great detail talking about how there are many, many references

stipulate stippled through the poem about the black dead. he talks about the hanging of a slave. the whole idea is we are now engaged in this moment. this is now the 1860s, that is a threat to the stability of the union, a threat to the principals. it's a threat to the ideals that fired the founders during the revolution. so really it's a -- it's come down to this childish paul revere and really it's a korea decor and morally impassioned call to go to the balance strayeds. >> readers at the time understood the message of that. >> they knew the times they were living in. it so happened that the poem appeared in the january 1861 issue of the atlantic which came out as our issues still do,

ahead of january, december 20th, 1860, which is when south carolina succeeded from the union. >> the first day they were to succeed from the union? >> yes. >> nathaniel hawthorne piece you mentioned a few minutes ago. chiefly about war matters, about a peaceable man. he takes this, hawthorne takes this trip in 1862 to washington. and what's his purpose? >> this is a fascinating piece. nathaniel hawthorne, the the founders and early contributors to the magazine was a great exception. he was very ambivalent about slavery, about abolition. and he wasn't. and he was very skeptical of this war effort. and the whole premise of this piece is that i'm going to set out for washington to sort of see what all this hub bub is about and he writes a super sill kwrous account of washington,

including abraham lincoln. terribly offended lincoln doesn't show up in time because he's having his breakfast and he leaves hawthorne sitting there. >> another writer offended by lincoln. >> another guy. this really is -- i mean, we're talking about one of the great writes. this is a terrible piece of journalism which makes it fascinate to go read. he meets mcclellan and is impressed with his manley bearing. he says, no, all this criticism of mcclellan you shouldn't buy into it. >> again, the contemporary, there are so many and so deep. this is nathaniel hawthorne, well established in the form of american letters. >> and for good reason. >> and for very good reason.

you can look at him and identify his type today, which is cynical journalists going to washington. not every good journalist has cynicism. but this is all -- and the irony is so then -- he had been discovered by one of the editors henry fields who is instrumental in getting hawthorne a national audience. fields commissions this piece not knowing what's coming of it. he is alarmed because the publication was abolitionist in a stance. hawthorne sort of has a jaundiced view of the abolitionist cause. and like henry vallard, describes lincoln in unpresidential ways. he's coarse, uncouth. again, we're talking in the 1860s. they do this for a very post

modern thing. it gets edited out. >> and hawthorne gets mad. >> he's inserted all these fake editorial comments. so it's this back and forth. you're reading along and all of a sudden there was a section removed by the editors. but then they allowed hawthorne to inject his joking commentary on what the editors had done. so the whole thing is a commentary -- >> you wonder how he got those comments through there. he's one of several writers who he visits harpers ferry and meets southern soldiers there. and he's one of several writers in this issue that comments on the nature of the southern character. >> yeah. >> what was your impression overall of how writers viewed southerners? >> well, it's interesting to me that -- i mean, it speaks in some ways to the per miss castity of the atlantic editors and their breadth of vision. they were ardently abolitionists.

yet there are a number of people in here where they sought to capture the perspective of this. they knew there were two sides to this story. in particular, we published two pieces in this, two out of the seven that he actually wrote for the magazine from the perspective of a southerner, george egelston where he's talking about the challenges the south are having to wrestle with and the breakdown of authority and gives credit to the federal union troops coming in and reestablishing. >> also it's one of a series of installments that the atlantic published which is still the south held in regard. it was a bit radical to do that. but he's very good writing saying you don't understand what it felt like to be in the south. if you, the northerner, had been in our shoes, you would have thought, too, and here's why and sort of explains the psychology of the south and the runup to the war. >> and the publications at the time were fairly controversial

among the editorial staff at the atlantic. >> there's one remark that we referenced in the introduction. his pieces were so convincing they were a little bit worried it was going to sway readers to being too sympathetic to the south. he would describe -- and it's what the defender to the lost cause, this is really about states's rights and preservation of our way of life, and you would presume to sort of rebeauty that. >> the picture that accompanies the thaw thorn piece of abraham link an visiting with mcclellan and his generals. tell us again how you got the photographs for this commemorative. >> early on we realized nationa phenomenal collection of americana and specifically portraits and other images from the civil war, which is where we

got the alexander gardener image that we put on the cover. so working with them, the cure ator of photography, frank goodyear knows civil war photography backward and forward and everything. brady, gardener, and all the rest. and they're working with pat mitchell, the art director for the issue. we also went further afield and there's no shortage of just fantastic civil war imagery, the library of congress. we were almost, i think, you know, struck by -- we have these great pieces of journalism. we should say back in the 1850s and 1860s there was no art or images. the juxtaposition of some of these pieces with the images that we were able to find. and i've got a page here open to the mark twain. mark twain is sitting with one of the african-american gentleman he was friends with. some of the photos of the

destruction of the war after. it really rings it home in avis ral way. >> we have five minutes left so i want to move to a couple other articles. there are two pieces by ralph waldo emerson largely dealing with emancipation. how influential were his writings and speeches on abraham lincoln dealing with >> he registers at a contemporary type. the op ed columnist. the first piece was calling for an emancipation proclamation. it is the demand of civilizat n civilization. all else is intrigue. he had been crusading on this question for a long time. really you can see him -- you feel him writing to an audience of one, trying to stiffen lincoln's spine. after it is issued and emerson writes at the end of that year celebrating its arrival.

he says, though, but it better not just be a piece of paper. he needs to stand up and deliver on the promise that is made here. >> and his tone is victorious almost. >> and yet still a warning that we need to back it up and put actions where our words are. >> we're going to hold your feet to the fire here. >> so this is one of two pieces. you have a piece by harriet beacher stowe. she responds to the women of great britain. how did that come about? >> she had a relationship with the magazine going back for a while. it is powerful but may be true. she published uncle tom's cabin which focused readers's attention and national attention on the problem of slavery. so i can't remember at what point during the war she actually comes from an audience with lincoln and the white house. and he said, oh, so you're the little lady who started the war.

>> but she is responding in that piece to reacting to a petition she had received among other american women from the women of england saying why aren't you standing up against slavery? why aren't you doing anything, sort of a moral call coming from british women for american women to act. she is responding in this story saying, where are you now? we're fighting this war and great britain is standing on the sidelines. so you, women of england, why don't you stand up and lend your voices. >> your senior editor coats wrote the near final piece, the title "why do so few blacks study the civil war?"what was his impetus for writing this article? >> he is deeply interested in the civil war, studying on it, working on a historical novel on

the subject. and he writes for the magazine and blogs for us online. he has been blogging a great deal about the civil war. he is responding partly to the egelston -- he was a fore runner of this -- but what he sees as the sanitizing of the history of the civil war, the mythologyizing of the civil war in the south that does treat it as a noble cause, a lost cause, a fight about civil rights -- excuse me, a fight about states's rights rather than what it was, about slavery and theest to end the buying and selling of human -- and forced labor of human beings. and his argument is that basically whites in the north and south came together to kind of, okay, we won't really talk about that. on the 50th anniversary of the civil war, woodrow wilson would give a speech in which he doesn't mention slavery as he commemorates the civil war. as a result, tomahassi is trying

to reclaim this history for black americans as well as white americans. >> and he makes the somewhat controversial point, which i would agree with, that -- and taking a number fairly prominent civil war historians to task, the tradition is to talk about civil war as the great tragedy of american history. in some ways that's inarguably true. yet the outcome was sort of unarguably good and moral. you know, partly -- perhaps in fact, because not enough blacks do study the civil war and because of political whitewashing and the focus of the meaning of the war, and the tragedy or not over the nobleness of the lost cause gets lost. and he draws valuable attention to that. >> we have been talking about the atlantic's special commemorative issue on the civil war. how can people get this edition? >> thank you for asking.

you can go to our website and find a link to order a copy of the magazine. we'll very happily send it to you to you. theatlantic.com. and buy it on kindle or ipad, you can download it. you can find individual pieces from our issue on the website. >> altaie lore, who does our in focus blog, three collections of images from civil war that go beyond that and really striking powerful images. >> scott stossel and james bennett, editor of the atlantic, thank you for joining us. >> thank you so much. >> just a reminder, we'll have a link to the atlantic civil war issue at our website. you can watch this program and all our other programs to the civil war at cspan.org/history.