on. despite such displays of kind firmness, lee also believed that strict discipline remained essential to an army's success, and he expected even demanded that his officers instill it. the greatest difficulty i find is in causing orders and regulations to be obeyed. lee wrote in early 1863. this didn't result from a spirit of disobedience, simply ignorance of what to do. although he pushed his officers hard, he never felt satisfied with his brigade and regimental commanders efforts tots stop straddling on the march, to prevent unauthorized absences or desertions, support orders againstly and enemy non-combatants. even as late as august 1864 he bemoaned a great number of his officers who failed to enforce military standards because they didn't meet with popular favor and struggled to find defective ways to make them do see even if

it confined them toll dur duties and camps and deprived them of pleasant dinners, et cetera. he thought well of his artillery battles and battalions but worried constantly about the leadership quality of the officers in his cal valer val-of-calvary. he encouraged the best efforts from his officers and exerted influence with davis and the secretary of war to promote and assign brigade and even regimental commanders who took this charge as seriously as he did. thus lee was very much an officer's general, but the enduring image of marx robert as a soldier's general is impossible to ignore. unlike the armies of mercenaries, conscripts and disenfranchised soldiers who served in armies most military theorists of lee's era wrote about, lee himself nerve ter forgot that he commanded an army of citizen soldiers.

even though he opposed the practice on a professional level, he appreciated matters such as, for instance, a georgian had to be found to command a leaderless georgia brigade, and his reasons included phrases such as, because it may be more agreeable to the men. a consideration that he wrote carried much weight with me. he shared their hardships. he understood that positive reward had a place alongside strict discipline fop reduce dezers rate he instudent add system of merit torous fe ououss to encourage good service with a highly desired reward but support the execution of demplt deserters if circumstances warranted it. he became at times a soldier's add voe doit address their needs largened small. given some of the large-scale matters i mentioned that lee talked to davis about, it must

have been an interesting moment when davis opened up a letter in the summer of 1864 that began with, my men need soap. well, it was an important thing that actually reveals much more than four simple words suggest. lee in his mind had made an important connection between the morale with the troops, the self-respect of the troops, the basic taking care of the bake needs of the troops and operational success. not every soldier of his era got that link. lee did. why is all of this so important? well, so often when histonians make comparisons of the civil war senior military leaders, robert e. lee is cast as the traditionalist, the old-fashioned perhaps almost even an antique compared to grant who's always the modern one. the one who's forward-thinking,

the one who represent as quite different age. i would suggest that perhaps we need to reconsider that idea a little bit more. with little guidance from the best military authorities of the era, robert e. lee quickly came to understand that the interrelatedness of the political, social, economic, diplomatic and military matters involved in war and he figured out thousand advise his superiors frankly and practically on the most effective ways and not only military ways to apply the limited resources available to achieving the con fed ralsies primary objective, independence. indeed, lee's embrace of all the elements of national power in its own way foreshadows the way in which we talk about national strategy policy and security policy at the war colleges today. we don't encourage our soldiers, our senior soldiers to think only in terms of a military

option. we teach them to think across that broad spectrum. we do that today. lee was doing that 150 years ago. it suchgts a breadth of strategic acumen far exceeding that expected of professional soldiers in his era and that's not traditional. that's, like, very much like today. slarply in his dealings with subordinates, lee followed his own inclinations than the standards of his time. most military writers of lee's time porp trayed armies as machines in which individual soldiers existed as faceless cobs, but lee seldom forgot the essential humanity of the men and boys who followed him. lee understood and acted upon the lesson that many of his contemporaries learned slowly or did not learn at all. that a existed between taking care of soldiers as individuals and the success of the army and the larger strategic objectives

they served. a glimpse at the recent headline suggests we still continue to deal with that today. as a general and a leader, robert e. lee actually exceeded the standards of his time in many different ways. he was more forward-looking than perhaps we ever really give him credit for and there is still a great deal more we can learn from him if we only put him back in his proper historical context. thank you. [ applause ] >> next week we'll be back at the virginia military institute for another session from this conference organized by the virginia civil war sesquicentennial commission. historians will discusses general u licese s. grant and the army of the potomac. the civil war airs every

saturday and sunday. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. this year, c-span's local consent vehicles are traveling the country exploring american history. next, a look at our recent visit to wichita, kansas. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. we're fwlir flying over downtown wichita. the air capital of the world. something general as aviation. something new and the feeling there was going to take us to higher places. is that fire say? we are at the kansas aviation museum's in wichita, kansas. our mission is to preserve and present kansas aviation heritage with a real focus on wichita aviation heritage. you look at the history of aviation from basically the

wright brothers moving forward to today. about 70% of all general aviation aircraft has been constructed in wichita. that's a huge number when you think about the msa or the pop lapgs of wichita being about half a million, compared to other cities of similar size, and to say that historically any city has 70% of the market share in any one industry is pretty significant, and that number still is about 40% to 45% annually. people who wanted to build planes in the late teens and early '20s came here seeking venture capital, and that's why i've come to call wichita the silicon valley of aviation in the same way people in the '80s and '90s migrate to silicon variety for computers, people who wanted to build planes, clyde and walter and lloyd and others, many others, actually, came here because there was lots of oil money. one of largest oil fields in america is just to the northeast of here, the el dorado oil

field. so there were lots of people with huge amounts of money as a result of oil. the people who wanted to build planes came here seeking that capital. this is a really unique building. it was the original wichita air terminal from 1934 top 1954. one of om 12 buildings like this built during the first round of air terminal construction in the late '20s and early '30s that still exists and the om one built in what's known as the indian art style that exist it's anywhere in the country. at that time in the mid20s when local officials started to begin thinking about a grand air term terminal, charles lindbergh was traveling the country and he came to wichita with the idea it would be on the major way between los angeles and new york and he worked with local official l.w. clapp. together he and lindbergh went all over the area looking for an appropriate site, and they finally settled upon this one.

is the highest point in wichita and one of the reasons they picked it, but also the particular type of grass that grew here had a very tight weave, if you will, and it made for a good landing strip, and the first six or seven years this air terminal was in business, it had no runway. it just simply out in the field had a big circle of white rock and an air sock and pilots would fly over and determine the wind direction and then land into the wind in the grass. and then roll up to the terminal. baup of air travel at that time, and this was a major route between new york and los angeles, this was the fourth busiest airport in the country for about 20 years, and, also, because of air travel and the fact that people didn't use private planes in the way they do now, just about any famous person you can think of from the '30s and '40s passed through this airport. we have photographs of famous actors who were here at the -- at the airport. friend astaire, a true story,

crechateed by someone at the airport at that time, fred astaire actually did a tap routine out in the atrium during a weather delay for the other waiting passengers. so a lot of kind of neat stories about famous people who passed through this building. this is our ramp area. this is where the majority of our planes are showcased. the area where we are right now is an area where people would come and they would throw their blankets out. right over here you can see the line of the concrete. the ground level was actually there and there were stairs off this terrace. over here to the left where these picnic tables are there was a little kind of a building there, and they would sell hot dogs and hamburgers things like that and people would come out, throw their blankets out and have their lunch and watch the planes come in. a plane would roll up and folks would disembark and go up into the building, but the folks out here would just walk out and stand around the plane as it was being refuelled. there were no fences at that time, and obviously, much less

security. stow was a totally different environment. the focus of our collection is kansas aviation heritage. so if the plane was built here or flown here, then we're going to be trecinterested in and it have a number of planes here. everything from 1920 swallow through more modern era planes, and the collection is primarily the result of two sources. either individuals who have donated their personal planes to the museum, or corporations that have donated planes in the museum. here's one other category. we do have five planes out on the ramp that were -- that are on loan from the u.s. air force museum in dayton, ohio. this is a 1920 swallow, a very important plane in wichita aviation heritage. it's the first production aircraft in wichita. so there were 43 of these built between 1920 and 1923, and it's

the first time in wichita and very early in aviation heritage where people recognized, hey, if we build more of these, the economy of scale, we can sell them to a wider audience for less money. this is the only 1920 swallow that exists. there weren't any, and this particular one is a replica, and if you look right here, our volunteers started with about 10 or 15 of these brackets, and these are original brackets, and they used those to scale photographs, and from the photographs, took hundreds of measurements and with the measurements krafted the working drawings, and then built the plane from those drawings. and so this is very representative of the amazing skill of our volunteers here at the museum. what i wanted you to see over here is, where the pilot would have sat in this basket, if you can see it through the mylar.

they stretch this on here so people could see the internal of the plane, but also, i don't know whether you can get a shot of that, but the control stick is actually a baseball bad. >> is that what it would have been originally used? >> yes. if you think about the development of aviation technology from 1920, when this plane was built, through the end of world war ii, you went from this plane, which had an ox 5 engine produce the 90 horsepower, through-of-frue at about 120 miles per hour. to 1945, the beginning of the jet age. the most intense period of development of aviation technology, and so what was happening here in wichita was some 80 companies building planes and plane parts is the experimentation that led to the jet age. the golden age of aviation. now, the plane that we're seeing in front of us is a leer jet 23 rand it was the leer jet of

built and actually the sixth one ever built. this was actually bill leer's personal plane. this plane doesn't seem very unusual now, but back then, this was cutting edge. i mean, learjet set the standard for what we know today as the business jet, the corporate jet. this is where it all started right here. this is model 73 steerman. it was actually in a military, navy military plane known as the ns-1, and this was -- it's a very iconic plane. there was an army version of this plane that had a blew fuselage and yellow wings. this was flown by navy aviators during world war ii as a trainer. so just about any naval aviator that flew in world war ii would have trained in this plane at some point in his career. and it's interesting, because it's a steerman, but at that

point in time, boeing actually owns the steerman brand. so this is an early boeing plane, but this is where it all started with a plane just like this. >> what is boeing's legacy here in wichita? >> well, they have a huge legacy here. i mean, at their height, during world war ii, they were employs 40,000 people. they built whole neighborhoods, like plainview, that's just a mile or so from here and they built those specifically for their workers. so they have a huge legacy a here. they've ban is a importanter of the community for years and years. sad that they're leaving, but you know, we've had a good run with the company. >> whenever there's a downturn in the economy like there has been recently in 2009 and moving forward, some 10,000 or 12,000 people laid off, and the unemployment ranking go up, and so it becomes very challenging. the thing that people in this community understand is, because they've lived through it, through lots of those cycles of

the ups and downs of the economy, is, they understand that that's going to happen. i'm not saying it doesn't hurt, but they know that that's going to happen, and i think people here's prepare for it. in terms of the psychology of it. and they know that -- that sooner or later the economy will turn around and they'll get rehired. people recognize that's going to happen in this community. people do just have a love affair with especially americans i think have a love aware with aviation. i think it's just -- the idea that, that there's another dimension. you know, there's a third dimension that we can experience outside of the two dimensions that we can walk this way and that. we can also go up. this weekend, american history tv is featuring wichita, kansas. our local consent people recently visited wichita 0 to

learn about its rich history. learn more about wichita and c-span's local consent vehicles at c-span.org/localcontent. next month we'll feature jefferson city, missouri. you're watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. american history tv is at annual meeting of the organization of american historians in milwaukee. we are joined by mark fiege, who is a historian at colorado state university and his new book is out "the republic of nature" talk a great deal about that. a topic of discussion here at the annual meeting, the environment of american history. joining us and leading that discussion, moderating that discussion is william cronon who stupdies american environmental history and the history of the american west at university of wisconsin in madison. gentlemen, thanks for joining us. >> great to be here, thanks. >> thanks very much for having us. >> your book is just out "the republic of nature" what do you

mean why in title? >> it's book about the centrality of nature to american history but to events that we nevlger think of as having much to do with nature. so the deck clax of independence, fregs, or the life of brab ham lincoln or the supreme court decision, brown versus the board of education. mainstream estlaents appear in a textbook most people would think of, when they think about american history, but they usually don't think about it in environmental history terms. so that's the origin of the title "the republic of nature." >> start with the declaration of independence. give us a example how your book ties into this. >> sure. a way of trying to understand the american revolution as environmental history. as an event which arises from and then unfolds in relation to the landscape, the environment. what we call nature. but a really interesting part of that is that the revolution had

at its center a fascinating language of nature. a language about natural law and natural rights and how the american colonies and the experience of people there fit into that. >> how does natural law -- natural law also informs a lot of brab ham lincoln's thinking. doesn't it? >> that's correct, yes. and that also became essential to the chapter on abraham lincoln, and how it figured in his politics. >> how did lincoln view the worlds in which he's growing up and tie this into natural law. how does lincoln take that and his ultimate achievement, the winning of the civil war, the emancipation proclamation, obviously. >> it's a really interesting thing, because lincoln actually talked a lot about nature. he used that word quite a bit. i think his understanding of nature informed his politics. he was a guy who experienced nature on a very personal,

intimate level, on the level of landscape and the work that they, and on the rivers, in the fields, et cetera. the way he thought about history generally was informed by an understanding of nature. this nature, then, this notion 67 nature also connected with his political life. so -- >> when you talk about natural law, i'm not sure everybody watching this program knows exactly what that phrase means. either for the revolution, the declaration, or for lincoln and the civil war what exactly do you mean by natural law? >> well, their idea was that humanity was part of nature, too, and there were certain innate in-born proclivity, impulses, that were a part of people. part of being a human being, and they felt that a voft had to respect those kinds of things. so at the time of the revolution, a common theme, self-preservation is the first law of nature. there is the idea that your

freed to feed yourself, to defend yourself, even on a kind of, reflective level, this was the origin of one's natural right to control your labor, and to control the things that you produced with that labor. >> so would you say that term and declaration endowed by their creator, is that a viewpoint of a religious, of a as someone who believes in natural law? >> i would say the latter. it's kind of a secularized nature. an equation of god with nature. there is this idea of god, whatever you want to call the physical creation that out of that emerges humanity, and humanity has these innate kinds of characteristics, he's needs and impulses and see forth. >> professor cronon, you are an environmental historian. what does that mean? >> i would say environmental history is a relatively new kind of history that emerged in the

1970s and 1980s, which tries to see the role of non-human nature. plants, animals, diseases. the landscape. geophysical processes in american history, or in world history. >> not just recent his degree? >> no. all the way back to the glaciers or hufr far you want to go bakke a think the great insight of environmental history and mark's book is really a fulfillment of this vision that we understand the world better. we understand the past better, if we don't treat human beepings in isolation from the rest of creation. from the rest of nature. we're in nature. our lives are bependant upon systems and our relationship with other organisms and many, many historical phenomena aren't fully explicable if you see us removed from those relationships. >> histories in the past is

taught as a series of personalities and more of events rather than saying, including the environment, the topography, the climate? >> well, certainly if were you to talk about the histories of history very broadly, you could say that the farther back you go, the more the impulse to suck seed. the role of individuals and leaders and abraham lincoln told the story in terms of one person, but i would say over the last 100 years, really, there's been a greater and greater tendency among professional historians to think about groups of people, institutions, large processes. but often before environmental history, non-human things were not much a part of that. so we could talk about the history to the stream court. the history of the congress, the history of the standard oil company but wouldn't situation them in the large ef context. that's the contribution of environmental historians. >> i'm struck on the east coast

when you travel from, say, virginia into west virginia, you can see how radically different the landscape is. you sgee a mountainous area. the people are different. there are -- people who settled that area were different, and so the states were split off in the civil war. do you find a lot of that in american history in particular, where the landscape itself, the placement of cities, of -- of people's really influences the political events that happen and what we do now is historical event? >> yeah and not in a kind of sim policeic deterministic sense that people live in that landscape, therefore they think or behave in a certain way. people in that landscape over there are shaped in a kind of, you know, crude way by their environment, but certainly the ways that people use those particular environments for the kinds of agricultural production, for example. if they use those environments. those do -- those processes,

those interactions do begin to shape how they think and how they view politics and things like that. >> and what i -- that would be -- one of the early products of environment as a field, perf purchase sewer exactly what you offered, which was to situate important historical stories in their landscapes and look at people's relationship to place and region. so much of the early work of environmental history put in the my own was the history of what you would think of an environment stuff. the history of farm. the histories of dust bowl. the history of water supply to vaengs. los angeles. the history of epidemic diseases which feen environment when you think about them and what's really important about mark's book, what's so bold and ambitious about mark's book is that he chose, really, way more than he would have needed to to look at phenomena that we don't think of as environmental.

the idea would you write an environmental history of brown v. board of education, the great supreme court of desegregated the schools in the united states that doesn't feel like an environmental topic at all yet mark does wonderful things with that. >> i'd love to hear the condensed version of brown v. board. >> maybe before we go there, another found what bim was saying. one of the interesting about historians of late is to collapse the boundary between the human body and the environment in which it exists and through which it moves. even in the first book i wrote, there's this sense of humanity and then they are in nature. they are -- but not necessarily of it quite the same way. so various environmental historians have begun to collapse that, saying it's almost impossible to draw a clear distinct line between an organic e1r0678ed body and then the kinds of things that it

absorbs as it moves through the landscape. so i think it's that collapse of that that has been very interesting and i tried to build on that in this book. so for example if it's true, if people go through a rural landscape in the mississippi valley, for example, they are interacting with it, thinking about it, they're being affected as it as a deceased environment what does that mean for something like abraham lincoln? he comes from that environment. reshapes it from the labor he performs and is in many ways shaped by that experience. so one of the questions i ask in that chapter is, what's the connection between that and his politics? is it just that he received these ideas through conversation in writing, and that is where he got his political ideas or is there any way in which his actual physical experience through his body of the lead reinforced certain areas that he encountered in books and so forth. that's really interest rng and does figure into the chapter on

brown v. board of education. >> tell us about the color line. >> okay. to me the main point of that chapt sir that the line is -- color line. >> what is the color line? >> the system of segregation that kept people separated along racial lines. of course, almost always was an instrument for suppressing, containing, manipulating, one group of people, you know, in relation to another. and so for me, the color line is not a legal abstraction. it's not just a set of laws or rather abstract kucustomary practices. as i see the color line it's an actual material practice grounded in our people organized the landscape and how different groups of people are situated in that landscape. so that's the premise of the brown v. board of education. i actually went to topeka, and it's very interesting, for example, when you look at the neighborhoods of african-americans in that city, most of these people were