program, visit us at qanda.org. q and a programs are also available at c-span podcasts. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. for more information, follow us on twitter@cspan history. >> each week american history tv's american artifacts visits his or theics places. during the civil war confederate president jefferson davis and his family lived in this mansion in richmond, virginia. in this second of a two-part tour of the home, the night of the museum of the on the fed acy tells us about rooms on the second floor. but first we asked mr. knight about how the national historic landmark has been preserved and restored since the civil war. >> and let's start back in april

4th, 1865, that's when lincoln was here and jefferson davis had left town april 2nd, 1865, at 11:00 p.m. the union army took over the city and this house on the morning of april 3rd. and abraham lincoln was here april 4th. he came in through the front doors, of course, just five days after that general lee surrendered his army at apple maddux. april 14th he was shot at ford's theater and died the next day. jefferson davis was captured may 10th, 1865. now, general godfrey weitzel turned this house into union army headquarters the day he got here, april 3rd, and it remained that until january of 1870. so actually the union army took very good care of this house, for the most part. this was their home and headquarters for almost five years. now n the first week or two of occupation, things were a little different. there were soldiers and officers coming and going. they were taking those souvenirs

from the house and sleeping on the floors and the chairs and on the piano, in one case. so it was pretty chaotic the first couple weeks, but after things settled down here a bit, this was lived in by a succession of u.s. army generals who took good care of the house. now, in january 1870, virginia was readmitted to the united states. so this house eventually went back to the city of richmond. of course, the federal army left. the city got it back and the city in the later part of that year, 1870, sold everything in this house and then turned it into a school. this was a school for 20 years. that's when it suffered damage. not during the war, not during the u.s. army occupation, but when this was a school. the city wanted to tear it down after about 20 years of being a school and replace it with a new building, but it was safe from demolition by a group of women here in town. a group that had originally formed as the hollywood memorial

association preserving confederate graves in hollywood's cemetery here in richmond. these ladies kind of reformed into the confederate memorial literary society and they took over the house. and they fixed it up and they opened this building as a museum in 1896. now, it didn't look like this then. in 1896 when is this opened it was the confederate museum. you walked around, each room was dedicated to a southern state and you had artifacts relating to that state in each room. and it was that way for 80 years. and then in 1976, the main museum of the confederacy opened and all the xiblts and artifacts were moved over there. then this house was shut down for an extensive restoration. so this opened, as it is now, as a historic home in 1988. still the same group of people, the confederate memorial literary society, the same

people in the same organization that has owned it since the 1890s. the second floor of the house in this era was typically private living space. this house is no exception. jefferson davis, his wife and children lived on the second floor. so decoratively the second floor, maybe isn't quite as exciting at the first. they weren't trying to impress as much up here, so you'll see furnishings that are older, plainer, a little less expensive and a little bit behind the fashions of the day. so the people that came up here would be, of course, the davis family. davis and his private secretary, burton harrison, slaves and servants and people on official business to see jefferson davis in his home office, which we'll see in a minute. the -- this is the office for burton harrison. again, davis' private secretary. and those on official business to see harrison would show up here. they would speak with harrison

and he would decide when or if you got to see davis in the home office. burton harrison was a young man from louisiana. he taught math at the university of mississippi. and he began his opponent as jefferson davis' private secretary in february of 1862. davis had had a secretary for the first year of the war, but that relationship didn't seem to work as well. harrison got along very well with the president and with his whole family. and harrison really became much like a member of the family. and it is somewhat like abraham lincoln's relationship with his two young secretaries, nicolette and hay. he died in 1984. in fact, in one measure of how close harrison was with the family and how trusted he was, is that when davis sent his wife

and children out of town about 36 hours before he himself evacuated richmond, he sent them in the care of burton harrison. so he trusted his entire family with him. we don't know very much about the third floor. burton harrison lived up there. this was bedroom and guest space up there. we know mrs. davis gaeft gave birth once up there, but that's about all we know. so today it is museum office space and we don't take groups up there. another false surface is there. oak grain simulation wallpaper. it may look like the sort of thing you buy at target, and, in fact, you can, but this was very fashionable in the 1850s and '60s. this actually is an exact reproduction of what was here. and so visitors who were lucky enough to be able to see jefferson davis in his home office would be able to come back here. now, again, this is jefferson davis' home office. this was a bedroom when he moved into this house, but it seems

one of the first things he did when he got here was convert it into a home office. now, as we mentioned earlier, this house was meant to be just the red dense for jefferson davis and his family, but he very soon turned some of it into working space. his executive office was in a different building. it was just south of the virginia state capitol in a building that is still there today. in fact, today that building is the federal court of appeals for the fourth circuit. during the war, that building housed jefferson davis' executive office, the confederate state department and the confederate treasury department. so a very important building for the confederate government and davis spent a great deal of time there. but also a lot of time here working. davis worked a great deal. davis was what we today might call a micromanager and workaholic. he was also an insomniac. he worked long, hard hours almost every single day of this

war. now, jefferson davis, as i mentioned earlier, went to u.s. military academy of west point. that was not really his idea. his brother arrange thads for him. davis, at the time, seemed to be leaning more towards a career in the law, but his brother was extremely influential in his life. in fact, after their father had died when davis was a teenager, his brother, who was about 20 years older than he was, almost took over as his father figure. so off davis went to west pointe. he didn't exactly distinguish himself at west pointe. his grades were not great but he did graduate and he entered the army. he served about seven years in the united states army as a young officer. like many young ambitious men, he eventually left army left in the 1820s and '30s, was static, somewhat boring from the young ambitious man, and davis left partly because he was a young,

ambitious man and partly because he wanted to get married. he met sarah knox taylor, the daughter of zachary taylor, who of course later became president of the united states, but at this time taylor, zachary taylor was a colonel in the army and davis' commanding officer. zachary taylor didn't want his daughters marrying military men. he knew how hard that life could be, but davis resigned from the army and married knoxy as she was called but she died less than three months late over malaria. he was devastated by her death. more or less, retired to his plantation in mississippi and spent the next eight years working very hard on that plantation. and also developing a strong interest in politics. he started getting involved in mississippi politics and then entering the national stage. in 1845 jefferson davis was elected to the u.s. house of representatives. the next year the mexican war

began. and davis was a little conflicted, not about the war itself, he was fully in support of the war politically, and fully in support of the president's aims, but he didn't know if she he should join the war himself or stay in congress. eventually he decided to leave congress and was elected colonel of a volunteer regiment raised in his home state of mississippi. so he led that regiment into combat in mexico. he sought action at the battles of monterey and buena vista and gained national fame due to his actions, specifically at buena vista. and he came back home a war hero, a national known war hero due to what he had done down there. and very soon after his return became the united states senator. he was apointed quickly to fill ava cancy left by the death of one of mississippi's two u.s. senators. so that opening coinciding with davis' triumphant return home

from war propelled davis into the national spotlight. he left the senate a few years later to make a run for the governor of mississippi. he entered that race late and lost it narrowly. in fact, by 999 votes. so he was out of politics briefly but not that long. when franklin pierce was elected president, pierce chose davis to be his secretary of war. that's the position davis held throughout the entire franklin pierce administration, 1853 to 1857. and davis, i think it is fair to say, redefined that job. the men who had held it before him had been almost literally secretaries. jefferson davis took over and was a very powerful secretary of war. the day that pierce left office davis became a u.s. senator once again. he had been elected shortly before that. so he was in the senate during those last contentious years of

the 1850s and into the early 1860s. so in january of 1861 when mississippi seceded from the union, davis was not only a sitting u.s. senator and one of the most prominent of the senators, but he was certainly one of the best known men in the united states. davis was very well-known throughout the country, north and south and west. he was very highly respected. he had friends and allies throughout the country, not just in the south. and he was in the mainstream of american political life. he didn't just come out of nowhere. and he wasn't on the fringes of politics. he was very much in the thick of it throughout the 1850s. a very well-known man. so when mississippi seceded from the union, davis resigned from the u.s. senate. he went home to mississippi and two weeks later while he was pruning his rose bushes on his plantation, he got a telegram from the provisional confederate government at montgomery, alabama. the telegram told him that he

had been chosen to serve a one-year provisional term as president of the brand new confederate states of america. now davis accepted. he moved to montgomery. he moved here to richmond when the capitol came here and then he was elected for a six-year term for the same position in november of 1861. this was more or less davis' secondary office. we think -- we don't have a lot of specific information about how often he used this office as opposed to the other one, but we think that he used this office more in the evenings and sometimes when he wasn't feeling as well. jefferson davis had a lot of health problems. and it seems as though there were times during the war when he wouldn't leave the house. he would just govern the country from here, either from this room or sometimes from his bedroom. even severe illness did not stop him from working. davis had a lot of problems. he had facial neuralgia causing

severe contorting pains down one side of his face. he had nervous dispence ya causing nervous problems. he had a shrapnel wound in his found from the mexican ward. he has reoccurring bouts with pneumonia, arthritis and bronchitis. he was blind in his left eye. he was not in very good shape, especially by our standards today. and sometimes i wonder if those health problems actually helped him become president rather than becoming a general. that it seems as though sometimes he would not have been well suited for a military role. but anyway, this office would have seen a lot of work by jefferson davis. he certainly spent a lot of time here. actually, this table is an original and this apparently is the one that he used for the first year or year and a half of the war. and then he apparently traded it to someone for a more proper

desk. we actually don't have that desk. this desk, however, does have a direct connection to jefferson davis. this desk and this chair were used by davis in the other office that i mentioned to you, the executive office on banks street just a couple blocks away from here. while we are looking at the desk, this is a pretty interesting piece. now, i should say, first of all, this is a reproduction, but there are very few of these things left today. this is called a courtney coal bond. and one of these was found on jefferson davis' desk by the union army when they took over the city and the house in april of 1865. it's a fake piece of coal. it's hallow. you can see the hole there. so you would fill it up with gun powder and then you would seal up the hole, that's a threaded hole there. you would seal it up and put resin on it and cover it in coal dust. then you put it into your enemy's coal supply and then hopefully the enemy shoves it onto a ship and then into a

ship's boiler so the ship explodes. that's the idea. and it's called a courtney coal bomb because of the inventor, an irishman named thomas courtenay who moved to the united states before the war. when the war sided with the con fed ray, they produced these for the confederate military. this is very much an extension cord. the way that we have extension cords today with a couple differences. it's not for electricity. that's the main difference. it's for gas. these are gasaliers, gas-powered chance sheers. and sometimes they use these hoses, the volcanized hoses in canvas to distribute the gasalier down to a lower gas lamp like this. many people characterized him not in entirely flattering terms. he's called rigid and aloof. he's called today the sphinx of

the confederacy because a lot of people seem to not be able to get into his head to understand what he was thinking. with -- i think with his peers, with other white political men, he could be quite adversarial, especially with those he didn't agree with. his wife is probably the best observer of him. and she has a couple good quotes about him both relating to what i'm talking about. one of them is, if anyone disagrees with mr. davis, he recents it and ascribes the difference to the perversity of his opponent. this is his wife talking. his wife also said, my husband does not understand the art of politics and would not practice them if understood. now, that relates to what i was saying earlier. doesn't mean that he was not good at his political jobs. i think it's pretty cleefr clear davis was a top-notch u.s. secretary of war and u.s. senator. whether or not you agree with his policies, he was clearly a

very good at his job. what she was getting at is he didn't care for the glad-handing, the politicking, the i'll scratch your back if you scratch mine. he was not that kind of man. he was not that kind of politician. and he just didn't do it. so i hope that gives some feeling as to davis' character, at least out in the arena with other men. it's also clear that with people that, frankly, were considered his social inferiors, i.e., women, children, black people, he was very generous, very kind and tolerant and indulgent, even. but with other men, he could be sharp. and our next room is the bedroom. it was shared by jefferson davis

and his wife arina. that was unusual for this time period because a wealthy married couple of this era would tend to have separate beds and separate bedrooms, but as we have seen, jefferson davis converted the other bedroom to his office. so he and his wife shared this room. the mattress is modern, we got that at sears, but the bed is the original. now mrs. davis was an interesting woman in her full right. her full maiden name was varina banks howell from nashville, mississippi. she was 18 years younger than her husband. when they got married in 1845 she was 18, he was 36. very intelligent woman, strong-willed, end pen depth minded. about as well educated as was possible for a mid-19th century american woman to be and sharp tongued at times, but i think on the whole she had more friends than enemies. this is her room, actually, off to the side.

she used it as a sitting room, a dressing room, a reading room, a writing room. we have an original writing desk of hers in there. and she wrote quite a bit, especially later in her life. actually, after jefferson davis died in 1889 at the age of 81, mrs. davis moved to new york city. she signed a contract with josef pulitzer to provide him with newspaper columns and for the last 16 years of her life she lived in a motel in manhattan writing newspaper columns for the new york world and she died in new york in 1906 at the age of 80. this painting is a pretty interesting one. somewhat for what it is, what it is is the archangel expelling loose lucifer from heaven. it was give to jefferson davis

by the pope, pius ix. we have not found the smoking gun to prove that, but what we do know definitely is jefferson davis and this pope, pope pisix corresponded during the war. the pope started and wrote a letter to the archbishops of new york and new orleans in 1862 trying to get them to use their influence to mediate an end to the war. the letter eventually became public and jefferson davis and many others read it and davis wrote a letter to the pope in september 1863 trying to enlist the pope's sympathy and support for the confederacy. the pope wrote back to jefferson davis in december of 1863 and the museum owns that letter, actually. we have it on did display right now. and although some on the confederate side interpreted it as more or less recognition of the confederacy by the pope, it

really wasn't that. it was more like a nice diplomatic note, a friendly one, yes, but that's all it was. neither the pope nor any other form actually recognized the confederacy, but i think jefferson davis had another angle in writing to the pope. i think he would have certainly taken recognition if it was offered, but he also knew, and remember, this was december 1863, so this is after well more than two years of fighting. he knew that a lot of men serving in the union armies were not americans. they were europeans. i've read one conservative estimate of 400,000 europeans serving in the union army throughout the four years of the war. and what davis and many others knew was that most of these europeans were catholic. they were coming from the poorer sections of europe that were heavily catholic in ireland, britain and parts of germany. so i think davis and probably secretary of state benjamin were

maybe hoping that the pope, writing a friendly note to the confederacy and expressing some sympathy might help sway some of those catholics from joining the union army. it doesn't seem to have worked, but it was a shot. all right. well, the next stop is the nursery. and the davis' needed a large room for a nursery because when they moved in, they had three young children. there was maggie who was 6, jefferson davis jr., who was 4, and joe, who was 2. and mrs. davis was pregnant.

several confederate army uniforms, and that's one of them over there. what he would do is put one of the uniforms on and take the cannon out of the back and set up targets he would call yankees and shoot them with the cannon. now jefferson davis jr. and his brother joseph were in a called cats. this house is on top of shockoe hill and this was a wealthy residential neighborhood at the time, so these were the rich kids in this dang. gown the hill was a less wealthy urban neighborhood called butcher town. that was the home turf of the butcher cats, the arch enemies of the hill cats up here. these two gangs would fight each other all the time. and one day jefferson davis himself walked down the hill trying to work out a truce between the two gangs. he was tired of his, excuse me, his sons coming home bruised and

bloodied from the gang wars. he gathered the cats around and sat them down and gave them a speech calling them the future rulers of their country and tried to get them to stop fighting and to put aside their differences and listen to him politely. then one of them stood up and he said, president, we like you, we didn't want to hurt any of your boys, but we ain't never going to be friends with them hill cats. so then president davis turned around and walked up the hill. then his wife wrote later, like many self-appointed peacemaker, he established nothing except an exhausting walk. wild kids. unfortunately, though, the boys didn't live very long. jefferson davis jr. died at 21 from yellow fever. billy died at 10 from diphtheria. and joseph died in this room on april 30th of 1864. joseph was playing around on the eastern portico and fell off of it. it was a 15-foot drop, twice

what it is today, and he hit his head. he was found alive and carried up into this room and he died here an hour later at the age of 5. the two girls did a little bit better. varina anne lived to be 34. she at least survived her father, although not her mother. she died from complications from malaria. maggie died at 54. so she was the only one to survive both parents, although just barely. she died in 1909, just three years after her mother's death. maggie, however, was the only one to get married and the only one to have children. she married a man named joe addison haste and they moved to colorado springs in the 1980s and had several children. one of them changed his name from hayes to hayes davis in honor of jefferson davis. some of them today still bear the name hayes davis. jefferson davis spent two years in prison at fort monroe in

hampton, virginia. he was released in may of 1867 on a writ of habeas corpus. he received bail and a trial date. the trial was postponed several times and then eventually dropped. so davis, although he has been indicted formally for treasonen, was ult mately never tried. he spent time in montreal and quebec. he spent time in europe, especially in england and france and wound up in memphis, tennessee, for a few years as the president of an insurance company. he removed himself from that company and then moved down to the gulf coast of mississippi to a plantation called boirvoir. he wrote a large book called "the rise and fall of the cone fed acy." he died in december of 1889 at the age of 81. davis was back in richmond,

actually, his habeas corpus hearing was in richmond. ironically, not only in his former capitol but in the building that housed his former executive office. before the war it had been, a course building and a post office and a customs house and then after the war it was a federal courthouse, so that's where the hearing was. so he was back here at that time and at least one other time after the war, too, although he never returned to this house. we are a research library, so we do have that function. and that's very important for many of our guests. researchers or academic who is are doing research in our library right in the museum over there, but for the average visitor, i think that is the most important thing to me as a guide. that's what i want to hear. when someone takes my tour and they tell me, i want to go read more about this, then i feel good. i've done my job. >> this was the second of a

two-part look at the white house of the confederacy. american artifacts airs every sunday at 8:00 a.m., 7:00 p.m. and so:00 p.m. eastern time. the life of a sailor included scrubbing the deck in the morning, working on the sails, climbing aloft, whatever the duties asigneds, dun gun drill practice, but you don't get a full eight hours of sleep. aboard the ship "constitution" it is four hours on, four hours off. >> this week on american itselfry tv, the life of an enlisted man aboard the "uss constitution" during the war of 1812. >> the sailor lived in fear of being whipped by tails. it was also carried bay petty officer in a bag and the thing a sailor never wanted to see was petty officer who was getting ready for a flogging. that's phrase we still use today, don't let the cat out of the bag. you don't want to see the cat tails coming out of the bag for a flogging. >> that's sunday at