mexico, and a congressman representing california. this event from the museum of the confederacy is about 50 minutes. our booke everyone to talk today. we have with us david g moore, a history guide for over 30 years, and has written the first biography of union general william rosecrans in 30 years. let's welcome david moore. >> thank you. and thanks to the museum of the confederacy for inviting me. and thanks to c-span, which is truly a great institution for the education of people. in the country, and around the world. i want to start by reading from an introductory chapter of my book. not too long. just to kind of set things up. a group of veterans gathered in chattanooga, tennessee, and one

of the key moments of the american civil war. they were in chattanooga for their 33rd annual meeting of the society of the army of the cumberland. that army had fought in march across middle tennessee in 1863, climbing mountains and reversing rivers before fighting confederate armies at chickamauga creek, in the greatest battle in the western theater of the war. in the minds of these veterans, chickamauga was not a union defeat, but rather the battle for the capture and permanent possession of the city where they were meeting, chattanooga. that capture of chattanooga eventually led to the capture of atlanta and the union victory in the war. at the third session of the meeting, an unexpected topic came up. a statue for the man who led the army of the cumberland during its most important battles in the campaign. major general william stark rosecrans.

the men began to express themselves. i worship the memory of general william s rosecrans. i hold for him or reference in my heart never to be replaced in a veteran. he was second to nobody in the army of the united states. there was no in superior to rosecrans. a third voice added, i want to say i think in strategy, rosecrans was not surpassed by anyone in the civil war or any previous war. he secured the city of chattanooga in the face of a strong and powerful enemy, overcoming almost insurmountable difficulty, but he had the nerve to undertake it. i think the success of general grant is due to rosecrans's matchless strategy. a fourth veteran opined, anyone who studies the campaign from

murfreesboro, southeast of nashville, to this city, chattanooga, gained by his blended strategy, cannot fail to afford to him the place of one of the greatest leaders of his age. this statue shall have a place in washington where it will stand as long as this republic. wow. so who is this man, who is william stark rosecrans? he was born in delaware county, ohio, in 1819. that is north of columbus. he won appointment to west point and he graduated in the class of 1842, fifth in his class. that enabled him to go into the engineering corps. he was the first westerner, many west of the appellations, to be in the engineering corp. because he was in the engineering corps, he missed the mexican war. the engineers were considered too valuable to risk losing them in a war. he saw service in his military

career and at fort monroe, virginia, not too far from richmond. he taught at west point. he had a profound religious conversion. he converted to catholicism. this would be a big part of his personality. if you were to meet rosecrans and knew nothing about his military career, he would probably want to discuss the elegy with you. -- theology with you. however, the military really wasn't that great a career if there wasn't a war going on. so he resigned from the army and engaged in private business. he was an engineer, he knew about refining. he worked in western virginia, in that area, and even had an accident one day that left him scarred. it looked like he had a smirk on his face. if you look at the book cover, you can see that. and then in 1851, the civil war,

he offered his services to the governor of ohio and was commissioned in the regular army. his first area of service would be in western virginia. western virginia, still part of virginia at the time, was the first significant campaign of the war. the overall union commander there was george b mcclellan. the first major battle of consequence was the battle of rich mountain. that is near beverly west virginia. or move, that's where you -- it was to be a pincher move, that's where you approach the opposing army from both sides. he would go up the mountain and make a flank attack. the aim was to strike that in me from the front. the cleland didn't do his part, didn't participate in the battle. rosecrans did, and he won.

the beneficiary of this immediately was george b mcclellan. he is called to washington to head the armies of the potomac in the wake of the union defeat at manassas, first bull run. so george b mcclellan gets command of the union army of the potomac without having actually participated in combat in the civil war. rosecrans now becomes the union commander in that department of the war. he fights another battle in september 1861 in central west virginia. small battle, but important. then later in the fall he faces none other than robert e lee, in lee's first military engagement of the war. no big battle. the armies were facing each other across mountains. these were raw armies, they didn't really know what they were doing. winter was coming in.

lee wanted rosecrans to attack so he would be able to destroy him. rosecrans realize that and he withdrew, pulled back. lee then pulls back, comes back here to richmond. that really into the campaign in west virginia in 1861. but a lot had been accomplished. because the entire western part of the state was occupied by the union army. people know that west virginia used to be part of virginia, but they also don't know why they were able to become a separate state. one reason was the union army occupied that land. if rosecrans had done nothing else, if he had just done his service and then died or resigned, he would be an important but minor figure of the war. he was replaced in west virginia by john c fremont. fremont was the first republican domine for president in 1856. he had been in missouri in 1861. he was an ardent abolitionist,

as far as generals went. he was always popular with the more radical element of the republican party, and i don't think it is stretching it to say it was a political dimension to him replacing rosecrans. he had voted for stephen a douglas. so where does rosecrans go? he goes to northeastern mississippi. he fights first under henry hallock and when hallock comes to washington, he fights under ulysses s. grant. two battles. the second was the battle of karen. these are in northeast mississippi. most people have heard of shiloh. these are south of shiloh. i'm going to talk about corinth first. he said the effect was very great. it was indeed a decisive blow to

the confederate cause and changed the whole aspect of affairs in west tennessee. from the timid offensive, we were at once and able to assume the bold offensive. from the timid offensive to the bold offensive. that's pretty interesting. let's talk about iuka. it was important for another reason. in september, then corinth in october. iuka is the beginning of a rift between grant and rosecrans that would never heal and would ultimately calls rosecrans to be removed and to not be in the army when the war ended. why did this happen?

iuka was also to be a pinzer movement. rosecrans was to come in from the south and grant was to come in from the north. as originally planned, grant would come in first and then engage the enemy, and rosecrans would come in from the south. that was the plan. as we all know, plans don't always go as planned. so what happened was, rosecrans was delayed in arriving. he telegraphed that to grant, and grant changed his plans. but things get curious. rosecrans never got word of those changing plans. in fact, there is a 30 hour period when there is no communication between rosecrans and the commanding general grant. rosecrans is coming in from the south and engages the confederates, there is some fighting, the confederates then,

instead of being trapped, they are able to take another road out-of-town and evacuate, and some people criticize rosecrans for this. but rosecrans's position would have been, where is the commanding general? why haven't i heard from him? grant wrote to reports on the battle. the first one, he highly praises rosecrans. in the second, he doesn't mention him. then something else happened, and that was rumors of drinking, that grant was drinking. it was a very contentious issue in the civil war. a lot of people don't like to talk about this. where do these rumors start? they seem to have started with a private soldier who wrote a letter to his parents just a few days after the battle. then an article presumably written by him, with the same initials as william f stewart, appeared in the cincinnati newspapers.

this would cause some problems. at the battle of corinth, which comes after iuka, rosecrans repulses general earl van dorn. they had been fighting in the heat, not a lot of support, and then the next morning he pursues van dorn's army and keeps pushing him. he believes he can capture earl van dorn and he believes he can take vicksburg. but grant called him back. rosecrans appeal to hallock up in washington, and hallock writes to grant and says let him pursue. grant says no, i don't think he can do it, and he calls him back. so these are the reasons for this rift. rosecrans feels he cannot fight under grant, served under grant,

and asks to be transferred out of that theater of the war. where he goes next is tennessee. he takes over the army that had been led by dr. lewis buhl. -- don carlos buell. it had bought at perryville and repulsed the confederate invasion at perryville in 1862. rosecrans replaced him. then on december 31, rosecrans fights the battle of stones river, or murfreesboro. this is an important battle. it's one of the 10 biggest battles of the war. it's about the same size as shiloh, does much more famous. -- which is much more famous. it's important for two reasons, i think. at the end of the battle am of the union army held its ground and the confederates retreat. we hear so much about the battles around richmond here. despite all the losses, the army of the potomac under grant didn't retreat.

the same thing could be said for rosecrans in 1862 or 1863 at stones river. but there's another reason, psychological. december 1862 was probably the low point of the union war effort. the disaster at fredericksburg. lincoln said there if there is a place worse than hell, i'm in it. all of a sudden grant thinks that he can take vicksburg with the supply depot destroyed. then this fear in washington that the british parliament is going to intervene on the side of the confederacy. the confederacy is doing well. there is a sense that if the british come in it's going to be very difficult for the union to win. but the victory at stones river, and it was considered a victory at the time -- people today will

say it wasn't a victory. people that were there thought it was a victory. men who really thought it was a victory -- the man who really thought it was a victory was abraham lincoln. eight months after the battle, in august of 1863, he wrote this to rosecrans. i can never forget whilst i remember anything that about the end of last year and beginning of this, you gave us a hard-earned victory which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over. yes people that know about the civil war thomas who did lincoln send that too, they probably would have never guessed rosecrans in the battle of stones river. so get it confederate spectrum. albert marx lost a leg at stones river. he later became governor of tennessee. this is what he said. events that made murfreesboro the hinge on which the fortunes

of the confederacy must turn, if that battle had been won by the confederates, the paper blockade -- in other words he's saying the blockade wasn't really that strong -- would be torn to tatters and the independence of the confederacy assured. the genius of rosecrans turn the paper blockade into one of adamant. on that field, his genius destroyed the confederacy and reestablished the union. even if someone says that's a little bit overstated, you could say, wow, people really felt that strongly on both sides? and yet a lot of people fell. not a victory. after stones river, what does rosecrans do? well, if you read many histories, you will say he delayed for six months. he was idle. well, he wasn't idle. rosecrans had suffered.

his army had suffered greatly at stones river. suffered a lot of casualties. he did want that to happen again. -- he didn't want that to happen again. he also knew that he was going to be entering an area where the terrain was difficult, hilly and eventually mountains. he also wanted to build up his army. he was an innovator. rosecrans was a man that had two patents. he was an engineer. he graduated fifth in his class. he was a smart man. he created a mountain infantry. these were soldiers that traveled on horseback, but then dismounted and thought as infantry. -- fought as infantry. he was very innovative in topography and cartography. they would go and take pictures of the terrain, develop those pictures, and then put what they saw on maps. they constantly had maps updated. it's very -- he was very interested in medical things, sanitation. in west virginia he had created an ambulance. he created hospitals and a way

to take the wounded from battlefields to where they could get care. a pioneer brigade that when ahead in cleared areas for the army to more easily advance. he created an honor roll to honor soldiers. he created the largest earthen fort in the war, ft. rosecrans. you can still see parts of it if you go to murfreesboro, the fastest growing county in tennessee. of course this all would be important for later in the war, for sharman, that big supply base. the lightning brigade, john c wilder's lightning brigade. the lightning brigade was he

-- was a unit that had spencer repeating rifles. the war department did not seem that interested in it. john c wilder, with the approval of rosecrans, her just these -- purchased these spencer repeating rifles, and to pay for them, money was inducted from -- deducted from the soldiers pay. this is not being idle for six months. then in late june, he moved. what rosecrans does is, he uses strategy. he thanks, he pretends to go in one direction, and then strikes and another. bragg feels that the enemy is in his rear, so we has to withdraw all away to chattanooga. if it had not started raining late in the campaign, it's possible that bragg's army could have been captured. i mentioned the lightning brigade. the first time the spencer repeating rifles were used was at hoover's gap, which is a battle in the campaign.

rosecrans was a man that had strong opinions about things. he felt slighted that what he had achieved in middle tennessee was not appreciated as much as what grant had done it vicksburg and at gettysburg. he actually wrote a note to authorities in washington and said, are you overlooking what we have accomplished, because it is not written in letters of blood. so he was a man of strong opinions. now what do we do? i don't know if any of you have been to that area between murfreesboro and chattanooga, but it's the most difficult terrain that any armies in the war face. mountains, rivers, the tennessee river which is quite large.

have you get into that -- how do you get into that? rosecrans had to find a way. he had three choices. he could go from north of chattanooga, but in doing that he's separating himself from the supply line, the railroad. and again, there would be no gunboats for him. the rivers were not deep enough to have gunboats. he could follow the tennessee river into chattanooga, but then you're going into a gorge. you can be attacked. so he decided to go south and to threaten bragg's supply route to the south. but in doing that, he had to cross mountains, most notably lookout mountain. lookout mountain had a few passes. the criticism of rosecrans is that he divided his army before the battle of chickamauga. well, he had to divide his army. he had to go through those mountain passes. another criticism of him is that he should have stated chattanooga.

there is a misconception, the union army did not occupy chattanooga fully until after the battle. just one part of his army went into chattanooga. he is dividing his army. one part comes through chattanooga area daily but brigade there, and then it continues on to try to capture and destroy bragg's army. so that is another criticism. the battle itself, chickamauga, the second bloodiest battle of the war. a two-day battle, september 20, a sunday, the day of the famous fatal order. thomas wood, the misinterpretation. a lot of standard histories will say that thomas would willingly made the decision to follow an order he knew couldn't work in order to destroy his army. i can't except that. self-preservation alone would

have something to do with that. recent scholarship has cast a lot of doubt on that. it was a mix up, all these battles. james long street who had been transferred from the army of northern virginia down to bragg's army, amassing a great force. rosecrans was outnumbered. union army had fewer people on the field in september 1863 in the confederate army. the ride is shattered, and then rosecrans is criticized for fleeing the battlefield in panic. another side of the story. rosecrans met up with james a garfield. garfield, an interesting fellow. he said it one point that he loved every bone in rosecrans's body.

he was a self-made man, he had studied the elegy and was a congressman who would later become president. he and rosecrans would discuss theology laid into the evenings. -- late into the evenings. they would hook up after the right has been shattered, and rosecrans said that he suggested that garfield go to chattanooga and rosecrans stay on the field, and garfield said i don't know if i can do all those things that need to be done, why don't you go? that is his side of the story. rosecrans did go to chattanooga and he did prepare for the defense of the city. of course george henry thomas is another underappreciated person on the union side of the civil war. he was able to prevent the total rout of the army, earning the name the rock of chickamauga. we should not forget that reinforcements came up and

played a big role. rosecrans was broken and despondent. going to read something from another interesting character, charles a danner was officially secretary of war. but everyone then knew he was a spy. his job was to go and report to the war department on what was going on. this is what he wrote to washington right after the battle. this is a time when honesty is paramount. when you want to know what's really happening. this is what he wrote. he said i can testify to conspicuous and steady gallantry of rosecrans on the field. he made all possible effort to rally the broken colonies.

nor do i see that there was any fault in the disposition of his forces. later he would start to write more critically and he would accuse rosecrans of being despondent. it's on the basis of these dispatches that rosecrans was relieved of command. you may have heard the quote of lincoln that rosecrans was stunned like a duck hit on the head. lincoln could only know what he was reading, many of those things were coming from charles a danner. so rosecrans was relieved. since we are in richmond here, let me read something from the richmond examiner. it says meanwhile, lincoln is helping us. he has removed from command the most dangerous man in his army and put two fools in his place. a variety of mean pretext for rosecrans removal had been published by the yankee press.

rosecrans thus retired as unquestionably the greatest captain the yankee nation has yet produced. his performance in the field is too fresh in the memory of every reader to necessitate recapitulation. this is a man few people even know about today. grant, who after vicksburg was kind of idle, and it wasn't necessarily his desire, he visited several cities, including new orleans, where he falls off a horse and hurt his leg very badly. but then right before chickamauga he is summoned to louisville, kentucky. this is after the battle. there are two sets of orders. rand will be an overall command, but one set of orders leaves rosecrans in charge of the army of the potomac and the other removes him.

not surprisingly, grant decides to remove him. this is in part because of what happened at iuka a year earlier. before we move onto his next and last year of the war, the opening of the supply line. many sources will say that that was due to w f baldy smith. rosecrans was despondent, he was sitting there, could barely get out of bed, and it took others to come in -- some used to say grant did it, but hardly anybody says that now. rosecrans died in 1898. there had been a dispute about this. smith asked for the war department to convene a board of officers to look into this.

it tells you how this was talked about in the 19th century. this is what the war department concluded. after a diligent search of the official records, the board failed to find any evidence that general debbie f smith was the originator of the plan for the relief of chattanooga. on the contrary, there is abundant evidence in the official record to show that the plan, which contemplated crossing the tennessee river at bridgeport at the northern end of the lookout valley, which was successfully executed by general thomas october 26-20 8, 1863, was devised and prepare for a general rosecrans before relinquishing command and that execution was begun under orders issued by general thomas the very night of october 19, that general rosecrans was relieved from command of the department of the cumberland, and without consultation with general smith.

people disagree with this, they need to look at these documents. lincoln liked rosecrans and he said at one point, i must do something for general rosecrans. he said he couldn't understand why there was this animosity against him. rosecrans is put in one more theater of the war, and that is missouri. missouri was a pretty difficult place. it was a very divided state. we really had guerrilla warfare in places. it had been stripped of troops, sherman was conducting the atlanta campaign. rosecrans came upon this lot by something called the oak, the organization of american knights. he did a great study on this and try to interest the administration on this uprising that was going to happen. i think in part he was trying to become important again.

in the fall of 1864, missouri was invaded by sterling price. darling price's objective, and did not have much chance of succeeding, was perhaps to threaten st. louis, cause an uprising among these american knights, perhaps install a confederate government. none of these were founded. price kind of went in an arc. kansas was a whole different military theater with a different commander. the battle of westport, we're coming up on the 150th anniversary of that in a few more weeks. it is the last major battle of that campaign. effectively the civil war was over.

west of the mississippi. if rosecrans thought -- he thought it would bring him back into good graces, but he was wrong. in december, he was relieved by grant, and he never again had an active post in the war, never again had an active role. he stayed in the army until 1867. then in 1867 he retired. on march 30, 1867, john russell gone was the editor of the new york tribune. he sent a letter to garfield. it read, my dear general, i see that rosecrans's resignation has been accepted at last. and that he is to go out of the army. i wish you would sit down before you leave washington and give me a memorandum of his military career, how he was removed for times.

each time at the end of a victory. as to enable me to write an editorial about him, give me your ideas and i will try to do him justice. garfield, who knew rosecrans very intimately, spoke about ideas. he responded, and this was part of the response. he said, it if the president makers, and actually horace greeley had sent a person down to sound out rosecrans for running for president, this thing is so complicated and so much different than what we assume is the set story of the war. if the president makers had let him alone, he might have been at the head of our army today. but in the fatal summer of 1863 was enveloped vision's of the presidency consulate thrust before him. here's the important part. i think this made him a little overcautious and increased the delay in the beginning of the campaign of middle tennessee. that is actually garfield.

garfield betrayed rosecrans a little bit. the kind of said rosecrans needs to move faster. you could argue that garfield want to have action before he came to washington. he says rosecrans's actions in middle tennessee were brilliant and successful but they came so late as to be up secured by the army of the potomac and gettysburg. i think also that the political leaders became alarmed at his increasing fame, and were not unwilling to see evil befall him. certainly it is that the war department seemed very ready to find fault with him from that time forward. i have never before put these thoughts on paper, and have rarely spoken them to my dearest friends.

the events are too recent to make it prudent, but the time may come when they will be known. that's a very strong thing. politics. in the book, i look at some of these political leaders. i'm just going to mention the one i think is key. that is a man named washburn. he is probably the most important unknown figure of the civil war. he was a senior republican in the house of representatives. he was one of the few people to greet lincoln when lincoln came in kind of incognito into washington to be inaugurated. he was from illinois. he had a chance to make some people officers. guess who else was from illinois? ulysses s. grant. he was grants sponsor, patron, he defended him in the house of representatives. we somehow forget how after shiloh and northeast

mississippi, grant was under a cloud. so washburn is a very important figure in this whole story. rosecrans lived until 1898. most of us would like to have a long life. he had what for most of us would be a pretty prominent life. he was an ambassador to mexico for a while until grant became president, and that was the end of that. he was registrar of the treasury. his image has never been on currency. he served two terms in congress in california. he had the opportunity to have other elective offices. he was from ohio and other states -- he really didn't want to do that. he had the nickname the great decliner. he dies in 1898 in california, and he is reburied in arlington cemetery in 1902.

if you are to come up on his grave, you would see these words. major general william s rosecrans, 1819-1898. nothing else. you would know he was in the civil war. you would know anything about him. so why don't people know about him? that's a good question. i stumbled upon this. i think in a 19th century people did know about this. there were books written on both sides, both the union side and the confederate side, on the dispute between lee and long street. this was talked about. but by 1898, the civil war was beginning to recede in the popular memory. most of the famous people were deceased. there was a war in 1898, the spanish-american war.

new heroes. a new century, new america. weston 20 years we have the first world war. less than 30 years after that, the second world war. and i think, in the 1950's, the civil war really wasn't as studied or as prominently in the popular imagination as it has become now. that changed in 1961 with the centennial. however, i think the emphasis in the centennial was the army of the potomac, and all of a sudden the big focus became ulysses s. grant and robert e lee. not just rosecrans, but people like george henry thomas and others who fought in the western theater just were not discussed much. that has changed in recent years. people have looked at the campaigns in middle tennessee, west virginia, and people have

looked at these campaigns and have generally been favorable to rosecrans. but no one seems to string them together, and very few people into the political dimension. i'm going to close with two things. i would say, should we do anything about this? this man, until recently, didn't have a statue anywhere. he does have one in ohio. last september, citizens in his home county dedicated a statue to him, north of columbus. if you're ever in that area, you should go visit it. it's a great story how local people decided to do something. it's a very handsome statue, also. does he have a statue in washington? no.

why doesn't he have a statue? well, i think in part because he lived too long. if he died in 1870, he may have gotten a statue. general thomas, who died in 1870, has a statue. but he doesn't have one. i want to just quote this. it says, why erect a statue of so great a man in at your place? -- in an obscure place. some people want to put it in arlington. the object is to perpetuate the memory of one of the greatest generals of the civil war. anyone who studies the campaigns from murfreesboro to chattanooga will see this great strategy. the soldiers that he fought under that knew him best wanted the statue. it's up to the american public to decide if they think he should have a statue. since we are in richmond, and since we are in the museum of

the confederacy, i'm going to close with a quote by a confederate. this confederate is dabney mari. he was the nephew of matthew fontaine mari, who of course has a statue on monument avenue. dabney mari fought against rosecrans. he said general rosecrans was one of the eight listed union generals and his moderation and humanity kept pace with his courage and skill. our dead received from him all the care do you brave men who fell in manly warfare and are wounded and prisoners fell into his hands a test his soldierly courtesy. so beloved by the people that fought under him, respected by his opponents, but neglected by the people in his own country.

thank you. [applause] do we have any questions? >> what were his patents for? >> they were related to engineering and refining, things i don't really understand. [laughter] i mentioned the statue in ohio. if you go to rosecrans headquarters.org, there's a great webpage on rosecrans that is very well done. he was a smart guy. >> what town is the statue in? >> it is in son barry ohio, which is delaware county, north of columbus. it's right off the interstate. it's right in the town square and well worth visiting. >> you have an antebellum

attitude like the know nothings. abolitionist or two fond of it either. anti-catholicism -- how do you think that played into his attitude and his postwar memory as well? >> that's a good question. when i stumbled upon this and was trying to figure out -- and i had a friend i did research with. if you read the book, you will learn a little bit about him. i wondered about that. i don't really think it was as big as we think it was. i don't claim to be an expert on this. i think a lot of the anti-catholicism was anti-immigrant, particularly irish. catholics were prominent in cincinnati. georgetown college, a jesuit institution, was probably the leading college in washington at the time. catholics were not an unknown presence. i have a treatment in here on that because i think it was very important. i have come to the conclusion

that it was just a general religiosity. america had so many denominations then. there were so many different groups created in the 19th century. they saw a man praying, but they also saw brave man. a man that was kind. there is a quote in here from a general haskell that accuses rosecrans of gongs and incense. that's an example of someone saying this guy is a mystic or something. i think it hurts him today. i think that in general -- and i'm generalizing here. i think many academics don't really like religious people. that's a terrible thing to say, but i think it's true, at least military religious people. i think it kind of hurts him am a but i don't want to get sidetracked on that.

i do think the fact that rosecrans was a very religious person, i don't think it helps them today in academia. i think the general population will say it is interesting. i did mention the first chief of staff, he was decapitated at stones river. i was recently at stones river. it was kind of pre-vatican ii catholicism. obviously, in the 19 century. they told me at stones river that some people come there and pray at the site. it's very interesting. mrs. rosecrans is buried at the same cemetery. mary sirotka was executed for being a conspirator in the assassination of lincoln. i couldn't find her grave.

i saw mrs. rosenkranz. he's buried in arlington. i stumbled upon a book and started reading all these superlatives and got deeper into the political asset. garrett shea is buried there. you had the derecho storm that came from the midwest and knocked out a lot of power. it toppled that monument. i don't know if he has any descendents that would be interested in restoring it. people often say there is nothing new about the civil war. [laughter] they say that. it's gettysburg, lee, jackson, sherman, grant. i stumbled upon this, as i have said. no one seemed to be interested in this.

have any of you read "decision of the west"? about the atlanta campaign? his last book was "victors and blue." in the end of the book, he says, he expresses his wish, his desire that some young courageous historian will write about general rosecrans. [laughter] no one seemed to be interested. a man named frank barney has written a book about general grant, and rosecrans. he's going to write a book down here in petersburg about five forks. there's a new book, gateway to the confederacy, about chattanooga. there is a chapter there about the grant-rosecrans dispute. the comes out on the side of grant. so i think it's beginning to be reevaluated. grant has his supporters.

>> did grant appoint rosecrans ambassador to mexico? >> no, he would never have done that. that would have been andrew johnson. he was president until march of 1869. you were saying that someone said that is the messiest of divorces. grant served in congress -- rosecrans served in congress. grant had some financial problems and they wanted to put him on the retired list which would entitle him to a pension. rosecrans fought that. a lot of people thought that was not good. but he felt strongly about it. it felt that general grant not only had wronged him but had wronged other people as well. thomas of course was going to be released by general grant. it is an interesting and deep story.

look at the book, it's available, and also this is a man that should be commemorated. if you think he is someone that should be remembered in the capital nation that he played a big part in preserving. anything else? >> is there any directed movement to get rosecrans a statue? >> we can start one. [laughter] ohio did it. the folks there got their goal. the book just came out in march. there are going to be people that are going to say no, i'm making these things up, but i think it is well documented. i hope this will happen in the next few years. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause]

>> joined american history tv next saturday for all-day live coverage of a world war i centennial symposium. from the macarthur memorial in norfork junior. hear from scholars about the war that inaugurated the 21st century, and welcome your carl's, facebook posts, tweets. our guests include the craig on the u.s. navy's wartime role, and sean mcmeekin, author of the berlin/baghdad express. next saturday, starting at 9:30 a.m. eastern, here on american history tv. all year long, c-span is during cities across the country, exploring american history. up next, a look at the recent visit to colorado springs, colorado. you are watching american history tv, all we, every weekend on c-span3. >> colorado springs is known as a city because of our fantastic

climate. nearly 300 days of sunshine a year. semiaridrrific climate, and also because of a great opportunity for recreation. a tremendous trail and park system. you can spend every day and something equivalent to the national park right outside your back door. shortly after settlement colorado springs in 1871, we became known as destination for people with tuberculosis. tuberculosis, in the 19 century, was the leading killer in the united states. it affected just about everybody in the country. during the early years, the only treatment that was offered to people with newly diagnosed tuberculosis was to go out west and to seek a cure. people would come to colorado springs on the recommendation of