in the aftermath of that performance, the only one in jackson's career that was a failure by any gauge, it just absolutely was, popular opinion was inclined to blame lee for a lack of complete success in corralling mcclellan's army, defeating it more thoroughly, capturing more of it, and none of the public press, none of the public, blamed jackson. and in fact exactly the reverse was the case. every once in a while the newspapers got it wrong. or they did then. i guess now they have it all straightened out. this entirely unfair judgment survived in the minds of the public right along. and to the degree that jackson did good in the valley, it was in part as a manifestation of this business i've mentioned to you, about the impact on men's minds. his failure during the campaign seemed surely to be the result of stress fatigue or some

dimmen use his vital force, probably because he overused himself. i have an extensive chapter looking just at what happened to jackson and why during that week in the richmond essays book entitled sleepless in the saddle. because i think that probably was the root of the problem. but northerners facing up against jackson's corps were terrified when they heard that mighty stonewall had shown up. one of my favorite quotes from that week comes from a vermont fellow in the first united states sharpshooters. writing at the time, and publ h published almost immediately afterwards, he talked about how when they found that jackson was there, it was unsettling. he wrote, the dreaded form of stonewall jackson seemed to lurk in every bush. well, if jackson was lurking in

a bush during the seven days, it was probably to sleep when he should have been doing something else. but the fact people were terrified of him is pretty significant. the utterly unknown military school professor, by the time his death, had become the great dread of the yankees. that's a quote from one the confederates. the legend continued to expand after his death. i have been shackled with the injunction that i'm not to talk about anything that happened after 1862. your window of discussion is 1862. but evidence of jackson's impact upon the psyche north and south comes from a wonderful court martial in acheson, kansas, in 1864 after jackson was long dead. i was amused when i found this. a citizen named a.r. earl ran a little store, in the summer of

1864, a court marshall tried him for treason. now, this fellow, under the constitution, there's no way a military tribunal could try him. there was no martial law enforced, but they were pretty much ignoring the constitution at that point. and they tried him and convicted him, and his crime was, he had been offering for sale in his impore yum a biography of stonewall jackson. this was the book which they introduced in evidence was the john easton cook biography, although his name wasn't on it. it was the pirated copy published in new york city. it had been copyrighted under the laws promulgated by the united states under the district court for new york or whatever the appropriate one was. it was completely legal. certified by the government. but none of it mattered to the

protecters of kansasian virtue, and he was convicted for treason. what a delicious tribute on jackson's impact on the public mind a year and a half after his death. northerners of less frenzied temperament openly admired their dead enemy. herman melville who was anything but a southern sympathizer who if you've read his writing about the war, as well as the big whale. he wrote two poems aimed primarily at jackson and lauded jackson. in one he declared that though relentlessly he routed us, we drop a tear on the bold virginian's beer. the other melville poem marvelled how his sword with thunder was clothed. some vindictive northern journals attacked melville as a traitor.

although he certainly was very pro union. and even in such an unadulterated northern venue as vermont, newspapers printed complimentary notices about his death. not a little bit continued with relief that he was no longer a foe. the same new yorker who i quoted to you who in june of 1862 had written home, no one in our army is fit to compete with him. he admitted on jackson's death, i do not feel like exalting over the grave of such a brave, wise and energetic antagonist. northerners of that mean sought to the posting of cen ten ils over jackson's grave in lexington. the degree to which southerners mourned jackson at his death is well-known to all of you. entirely typical reaction was to blame the country's loss on a vengeful god in keeping with the

spirit of the times. a leading southerner cleric, you've probably heard this one, suggested just within days after jackson died that the news actually was good obviously. god clearly was on their side all along and he now evidently has charged himself rather than jackson with the care and protection of the struggling republic. a north carolinian, i have some north carolina friends here, charles and stanley, every time every once in a while you find a literal north carolinian. this fellow writing home to his family said the army loved him and sort of idoltry, in the same vein as the cleric, i believe he

was taken away to learn us not to depend upon the arm of the flesh. a punishment for being too much in the south. a similarly piased virginian reached the blissful conclusion in a letter that it is all for the best. about but he could not help in the very same letter admitting in a little bit less relentlessly optimistic view, i almost feel like we are without a general now. the few southerners who were still not impressed by jackson, even after his valley triumphs, were primarily motivated it seems to me by jealousy. general joe johnston who had more than ample reason for jealousy of almost everyone, and no real credentials for pontification, he insisted that jackson was not a military genius, but rather possesses sub lime enthusiasm. he did have sublime enthusiasm, but perhaps more than johnston was willing to admit. a woman where jackson had

inaugurated one those great successes, made the mistake speaking growingly about stonewall jackson in front of one of general james longstreet's staff. osmond latrobe. latrobe she wrote was greatly piqued by such good words and said that it detracted from longstreet's fame. certainly sounds like jealousy to me. and latrobe, who was a mild mannered fellow, surprised her. she added, i was very much taken aback that such a quiet, self-possessed individual should have been startled out of his usual equanimity thus. longstreet himself of course bet three decades after the death pointed out their defects and trying to assail their reputations. the emergence of fool tom jackson as he was known at the vmi with some cause, sort of

fellow for whom high schools used to be named, grew expressly from those few days in the spring of 1862. southern newspapers admitted their conversion experiences. they had been making fun of jackson. they had been highlighting his eccentricities. they had been speaking de ricively of him. the richmond daily whig has been explaining how the war should have been run in their view, they knew how to run it in the valley and everywhere else, they had made a lot of fun of jackson and his eccentricities. they had the good grace to spoof their earlier stance with with a lengthy foe wanted circular. a liberal reward will be given for the apprehension of a confirmed lunatic who escaped from the asylum early in the spring. a nice metaphor for what was

going on. he endeavors to avoid zee teks by calling himself t.j. jacksoning and thinks of himself as an officer in the confederate army. he was offering personal indignity to an aged ex-senator of the united states. all of this alluding to banks and fremont and the rest and so on. the entire efforts of the united and confederate states governments have failed to arrest him. the georgia newspaper, which from afar because it's beloved 12th georgia was from the home papers latitudes, had been doing harm to jackson early, they came around. they similarly reverse field and acknowledged that they had been wrong. jackson's recent victories give us a delight the georgia paper said, we hope he will keep on and give us an apoplexy before he stops. so this quite lunatic had become

mighty stonewall. just about overnight. or the overnight of 33 days. a few dozen nights. his newly won stature made him a pseudo purveyor of soap, and it made him the strong right arm for a period of time for the southern confederacy. it made it possible for of richmond. it changed the whole complex of the war and that is why it seems to me he might well deserve attention as the man of 1862. we have by design ten minutes for questions and answers. i guess professor rawls will moderate those. >> professor rawls is going to change the way we're going to do it, bob. you're going to come down here. >> okay. >> and sit so that the tv audience can be seeing you better.

>> first the public q and q, and then he is going to come down here. okay. got it. first the public q&a. and we have stationary mikes on either side. we can't pass the mikes. so if you have a question for bob, please stand up and go to one of the mikes on either side so that the tv audience can hear you. public q&a, bob. >> all right. i'm hoping that stanley or charles will rise to the defense of tar heels everywhere. i should tell you fellows i'm an honorary north carolinian. the more ravian bishop of north carolina got the governor to sign a prok -- proclamation. and i do not have plastic flamingos on my yard, but otherwise i have bought into it. i really have. >> just assume if someone were to nominate robert e. lee later in the day, assume that's a

possibility, because we're not having a panel discussion at the end that will give you all a chance to dis each other's candidate, what would you say to someone who nominated -- why would the audience -- why should the audience vote for stonewall jackson instead of r.e. lee? >> instead of lee. i could hardly sleek at horror that lee was the man for 1862. but the question of when in southern consciousness the track of the two x axis crossed is something i've long debated with gary gallagher in forums like this. he's inclined to think that lee became the man in the south in perception. well before jackson's death. i'm not so sure of that. but lee's rise to prominence was appreciably later than jackson's. that's unquestioned whether it was late in 1862 or not, none one. number two, lee's rise to

provenance was in considerable degree facilitated by jackson's success, allowing the seven days to unfold. so you can pay your money and take your choice with that. general? >> bob, you have shared with us actually a treasure trove of comments about the man, your nominee. i wonder if you could comment just a bit on what tomfool jackson himself had to say during this period. have you had a chance to look at his exclamations? his short letters to anna, his thoughts about why he was having so much success against so many enemies in that 33 days? >> the question is an apt one, and the answer is tied deeply to

his unbelievably deep religious person. it's difficult for me, i suppose for a lot of modern people even if you are religious today to look back to an era in which the attitudes particularly of conservative folks, and he was of course, a predestinarian, he genuinely believed that he was god's instrument on earth. to a greater degree i suspect an that even deeply religious people today do. and it struck me when i first read it 40 or 50 years ago at first as being a little bit disingenuous the degree to which maryanna would write and say you're all over the newspapers. you're famous. and he would write back and say, it's not me at all. it's god. i'm just his instrument. the certainty that he actually believed that in every fiber of his being is just about unavoidable if you read all of

his correspondence. there's a great deal of it. anything anyone tells you today, good news is you don't have to believe me, them, you don't have to believe us, all of this material is available. it's not like the french and indian war in which i worked briefly where there are six accounts of the battle of fort necessity where i was posted for a while. you can jackson on this to your heart's content and come to grips with it. i'll be surprised if when you're done, you do not believe his attitude toward all of this had nothing to do at all with him, he was merely the vessel through which god was doing things for his chosen people of the confederate states of america. >> while the rest of you contemplate something further, let me make an appeal that i always do when i get on my hind legs in front of people, even people who are not the friends of civil war preservation that you all ought to be. to support the preservation efforts that we're all involved

in, the civil war trust in washington, the central virginia battlefields trust in fredericksburg. >> richmond battlefields association in richmond whose president is here today. i saw him a while ago smiling sam craig back there, are all striving in the last decade that we have in the main theater, as opposed to bentonville, north carolina, or maybe far southwestern virginia before development overwhelms it to save the battlefields. many of you are ardent supporters of that. mary roy edwards has always supported all of these. i sometimes am surprised by the degree to which civil war historians who made it their life's work don't support the battlefields. jim mcpherson sitting back there, i see him and his wife next to him has always supported the old apcwcs, the civil war trust, the central valley battlefields trust. i see him all the time on the printouts. he deserves credit for that. i can't get shrill with those of you who are battlefield oriented.

if you're special interest to some figure you'll hear today. political figures like you heard about last year and lincoln was the man of the year. the publication of their papers deserves support and fiscal and otherwise. the preservation of their sites, their houses deserves preservation, but most especially the battlefield, which is my own venue. you folks need to support us. a lot of you do, more of you should. there's my sermon. not a predestination sermon. we've got to work at it or it's not going to happen. anyone else? walter? >> bob. >> got to go to the microphone or you'll make the media folks unhappy and that's a bad thing. >> a little later in 1862,

stonewall performed at sharpsburg. when did his difficulties with a.p. hill arise? >> well, the jackson had a good bit of difficult with everyone who was subordinate to him virtually without exception. one of the -- the question i've been asked second most often in my speaking endeavors, first is what if jackson had been at gettysburg needless to say, why did the southern confederacy struggling with no leadership of any quality in the western theater, despite jefferson davis's view of braxton braggs' qualities, why did they never send jackson there or contrarily send lee there and leave jackson in charge here? and i have little doubt in that parallel universe that jackson would have been a complete failure at the head of an army

because he could not get along with his subordinates. his world view was so narrow, he could not get along. with legal to shield the sub order flats from him and jackson got away with being a grumpy person as a corps commander. by himself, he would have had the command of the army of tennessee in irons almost immediately. maybe that wouldn't have been a bad thing from what i know of the army of tennessee but he was not cut out for that. he real hi wasn't. but hill is the example of that. and the problem began on the two days before the battle of cedar mountain. there's a good book that will explain that to you. you probably have at least a couple of copies of that already, i hope. but it began there where hill had misunderstood some orders which jackson had not been as skillful as he should have been in liming for him and outlining for him. on the other hand, hill just stood by, was not what you expect from a modern major general so jackson went to war with him. it got worse on the parch to manassas with discipline burning rails and jackson said to maxie

gregg, one of hill's brigadiers that few understand the importance of solarity in war. that was probably the root of that in both cases. it's not widely known, walter, today that jackson and hill had a reproachment of some sort near the end of their lives. they were still at loggerheads during the winter of '62 and '63 the last winter of jackson's life. the chief signal officer, r.h.t. adams of a.p. hill's division was accepting orders from jackson's staff without going through the division commander, and that made hill angry, and he complained about it. jackson threw him had under arrest again. but a couple of weeks before chancellorsville there's good evidence that the two of them met at prospect hill, just above hamel's crossing, looking down toward the lower crossing of the rappahannock near smithfield and the burner place down there. when they met, they climbed off

the horse, took their gloves off, shook hands and talked in a warm fashion and so on. so they had somehow come to terms with that, to at least some extent. the origin is august of 1862 and the end is april 1863. anyone else? we're just about right on time. yes, sir. there's one more. >> will you comment on what jackson thought about the jefferson davis during 1862 and possibly vice versa? >> what thomas jackson thought of jefferson davis in 1862. jackson had a low opinion of davis. there are a number of episodes that make that abundantly clear. jackson's world view was that things were supposed to run according to the manual, and davis not only had accepted way

out of channels complaints about jackson during the romney campaign that not only did not go through jackson, which is the way the book's supposed to be, he might have forgiven that, but they went through his superiors and went right straight to the secretary of war, the secular leader of the war effort. and jackson also is said to have been -- this is not quite so well documented -- disgusted with davis' unwillingness to pursue after first manassas. but there is a documented episode in the aftermath of the seven days when jefferson davis rode down past the battlefields to malvern hill on the morning of july 2 and came into the room where lee was for a conference with the leading commanders, jackson was present. he immediately stood up, stiffly at attention and then promptly left the room and there were evidences that he just didn't want to be around davis. he never said in writing what he

thought about the davis. he would never say such a thing. that would be contrary to that by the book world view that he embraced to keep his life online. we have precisely used up our time. thank you for your attention. [ applause ] >> okay, gang, as bob gets mic'd up to do q and a with the c-span audience, we're going to take a break for 15 minutes. we'll be back in here at exactly ten minutes of the hour. and we will hear david blight next. i just want to give you just a highlight. david and bob will disagree on who the person of the year is for 1862, but i think that the greatest disagreement is bob is a hopeless san francisco giants fan and david equally with the detroit tigers. so that's their major disagreement.

again, so let's take a break. books available and coffee and doughnuts outside. thank you.

>> you're watching american history tv on c-span3 where we are bringing you all day coverage from the library of virginia in richmond. the second year they've done this event with us in looking at the person of the year, and this year it's 1862. the civil war celebrating the 150th anniversary. 1862 is the year they're focusing on this year. and today, five historians will present their case for person of the year. we heard from robert krick who for 30 years was chief historian at fredericksburg and spots spotsylvania national military park. and his nomination was thomas stonewall jackson, general thomas stonewall jackson. we're going to talk to robert krick momentarily and also take your phone calls, as well. here are the phone lines if you live in the eastern and central time zone, the number is 202-585-3885, mountain and

pacific, 202-585-3886. make sure you do mute your television when you call in so you don't feedback. you can participate online even if you don't want to call in at twitter.com/c-span. we will focus specifically on the #poty 1862, if you put that in your tweet, we'll try to read some of those. we already have some posts on facebook, facebook.com/c-span. you can join in with your nomination for the person of the year 1862, and just a couple of them want. want the take a look at that now. writing in for lincoln. justin says it should be lincoln in september of '62. with the emancipation proclamation. also paul martin says the abolitionist william lloyd garrison. we'll look at a couple of those and take your phone calls, as well. robert krick joins us from the library of virginia in richmond. robert krick, your nomination

was thomas stonewall jackson. outside of the south in 1862, how well-known was stonewall jackson? >> '62 began, he was barely known in the south and probably not at all in the north and the impact that he made in 1862 seems to me to be in large part a consequence of that explosion as though on a catapult to fame. his impact on the year in the minds of southerners and of northerners both the soldiers in the field and the civilians at home on both sides of the river went from nothing to a great deal. and that is part of my case in making him the man of the year for 1862. he gave the south the opportunity to look for some success and find a good bit of it later in 1862. they had had none, not a tincture of success until jackson a little bit in march but mostly may and june in 1862 in the virginia shenandoah

valley won victories that were of some consequence. they had some substance but they were not as important in actual fact as they were in the minds on both sides about the new nation having a life, having some potential, having some capacity to succeed. >> toward the end of your comments, you made the point you thought that thomas jackson would have been a failure as the head of an army. and yet, certainly his legacy after his death in 1863 certainly was a motivation for southern soldiers. >> yes, his personality, his style, his world view was so rigid and constrained that he was not going to lead a large number of powerful men. corps commanders and division commanders and so forth smooth smoothly in an integrated effort. as part of a larger organization, his unquestioned military ability and his derrell nation and his zeal were priceless attributes. i do not think,