around the state and this fascinating conflict that we learn about today. thank you for being here. [applause] >> the civil war heirs every saturday. to watch it any time visit our website, c-span.org/history. you're watching american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. next, a look at the house speakers lobby as the congress prepares to reconvene on tuesday , january 6. >> we are in the speakers lobby. what can you tell us about the history of this area of the capitol building? >> it is one of these great places that most people don't get a chance to see. it is not on any tour. you have to be staff or a member to come into the speakers lobby.

it is a lot of chairs and it used to have a telly top -- teletype machine. that is in the days before the internet. before twitter and everything else. a lot of the members pay great attention to the teletype machines in the speaker's lobby. it is where members can get hometown newspapers, and they can come here and read a newspaper for a little while. it is a place where a lot of the real business of the congress occurs. this is where members talk to one another on the floor. you will hear the speaker bang his gavel at the end of a vote when everyone is in our uproar and talking. he will say the members will take their -- they will retire faye want to talk, or take their

conversations into the lobby. this is right off the house chambers. they would be in this lobby. they can carry on their conversations. it used to be this was a more smoky place than it is in modern times, people smoking cigars. there are cloakroom's off of the house chamber where members can retire. they can use the telephones in their. they can get a hot dog, a soft drink, coffee. they can smoke they care to. there are cloakroom's for each party. the speakers lobby is for both parties. it is for anyone coming in and off the floor. it has these great portraits of the speakers of the house going back to the first speaker. all of them up to fairly recent

times. they don't have every one of them, but most of the modern era speakers are in the lobby or somewhere near. they can't hang them all. >> who has access to this space? do lobbyists come here? >> it is called the speakers lobby but the only lobbyists that work this space are people who have been invited to accompany members. most of the lobbying that goes on in the offices of the members in the corridors of the house and senate office buildings that is for most of the lobbying occurs. they may lobby the speaker's office. anybody comes to congress with their business, they are either lobbyists who have a mission, a certain cause a corporate in

the wants to have some influence, or they are advocates, people who come here for various issues, and they are not here to be politically change the laws, but simply to advocate him a nonprofit organizations, humanities groups. they come every year, every kind of group you can imagine comes to the hill. that are in scripts, everybody. it is a big procession of all kinds of americans. >> can you tell us more about the portrait collection? are there significant portraits in this lobby? >> these are very good portraits, going back to the first speaker. the one that is here is actually

a speaker in 1789. this is a copy of obtaining that was done about the time he was speaker. this was made in the 1820's. but many are made after the speaker leaves office. some of them are a little bit more interpretive depending on what the artist that did it was like. most of them are realistic lifelike. several were done by howard chandler christy, a famous painter in the 1920's and 1930's. he is most famous for these big pictures of the signing of the constitution, which hangs in the house between the first floor and the second floor. this magnificent, huge painting. he did several portraits including rainy and when other

speaker. there are some famous portrait painters who have done some of these. others are less known as portrait painters, perhaps as artists. i like the one of denny hastert. i think it captures him. it is one of the more recent ones. he has the mace of the house in his picture. and the silver inkstand. i find i have a fondness for that inkstand. it had to be repaired. don anderson and i had to have coin silver. we took some old, worn down coin silver's when they had silver content close to the silver that was used. every time i see a portrait, or see that inkstand, i feel a nice

connection to it. it is in his portrait. >> thank you very much. >> you are watching american history television, 48 hours of american history. follow us on twitter for information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. next we continue our look at the 1864 presidential election between abraham lincoln and general george mcclellan lincoln's former commander of the army of the potomac. elizabeth bavaron view of the confederates. >> my name is catherine lincoln. it is my pleasure, my privilege

to introduce professor elizabeth barron who will speak on the election of 1864 and confederate eyes. i think this is an important topic to address early on in the symposiums we don't forget there is a whole other conversation going on in other parts of the country. the professor has her bachelor degree, then went on to teach in temple before coming to the university. her first two books were from a woman's point of view about women's opinions and activities in the south, in antebellum virginia. then i biography