still impressive even in its current form. >> chris victim -- bingham. we heard about the maclean's and how they were affected. can you elaborate on what happened to the bennett family? >> i was reminded by ron wilson's inventory of all of the stolen items from the maclean house that the bennett's underwent a similar pilferage. it was so bad that james bennett applied for restitution from the governor of north carolina, william holden. not just once but twice to recover his stone artifacts. that included the table that the surrender documents were written and signed on. james then at and william maclean would have a lot to talk about if they ever got together.

>> a question about the supplemental -- the schofield supplement to the surrender terms. how were they received in washington and were they successfully carried out? >> what i think happened is when they reached washington about a week later, they saw it as an accomplished fact. the most controversial provision would have been letting 1 in 7 confederates keep their weapons. i think they felt that would not be too harmful. i would say that -- and i did not go into this because i did not have time -- there was a great deal of furor up north about the terms because secretary stanton had sent his reasons for his approving them to the newark times -- to the new york times where they become

public knowledge. sherman was furious and he found out. amid all of that, the supplemental terms slipped through without much notice. we do know they were approved. >> time for another question if anyone has one. >> thank you. >> thank you. appreciate it most of [applause] >> we do have two of marx books -- mark's books here. so grab mark. he won't be around tomorrow to sign them. the good news is it has stopped raining.

if you want to go to sailors creek, chris is out there especially for people sticking around to tomorrow and we hope you do because we again have some really good speakers tomorrow. bert dunkley is coming. casey claybo is a professor at lynchburg college. she is talking about confederate soldiers go into brazil. he also has a book called "women of war." and john hennessy wraps up with his talk "the civil war and its

legacies." he will try to incite questions you want answered about the legacies of civil war. a reminder to pick up a reminder to pick up the flyer on the events at appomattox. lee cheryl's book. the big thing for us to promote is our tour of the appomattox campaign. it will feature three days of touring the sites from petersburg to appomattox may 15-17 with chris, myself and ron wilson. it is all online at the website. there are paper copies out here with the group. thank you for coming. you are a great group of people to come to these programs. i will let david wrap it up and i will see you tomorrow. one quick thing. we up everybody will be here

tomorrow but if you are not and you're not on a bill in with, please sign up. there is a sheet there on one of the smaller tables. if you changed your address, we don't have the exact date yet of next year's session. it depends on the speakers and availability. if you have any suggestions on topics please get with patrick or myself all stop -- myself. that isn't. -- is it. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> if -- tomorrow, we will be back for the final day of the civil war seminar starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. you can find out more civil war programming every saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern time on american history tv or anytime on our website. just go to cspan.org/history. thank you for joining us today. >> history bookshelf features

popular american history writers and airs on american history tv every weekend at this time. author candace villard examines the history of the assassination of resident garfield. she discusses the politics of the time and looks at the medical treatment in the 11 weeks you survived after suffering a gunshot went. posted by a james garfield national historic site, this event is a little over 50 minutes. >> it is my great pleasure to introduce to you our speaker, an excellent writer formally of national geographic magazine. we are excited to have your hair talk about her second book. we are very pleased she us chosen to tackle another interesting presidential subject

, the assassination of president garfield. i believe this is her third or fourth trip at the site. it is a great pleasure to welcome here -- her here tonight. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction and thank you for coming. it is a real pleasure to be here and it is a great honor to be able to speak at the james a garfield national historic site. i also wanted to say a particular thank you to the garfield family as well, which has been incredibly kind and generous and helpful to me throughout this whole process so thank you so much. at heart, this book is not about politics or science or even the shooting of a president. it is about an extraordinary drama that took place inside the white house for over more than two months.

in a 130 years since garfield's death his story has been largely forgotten, but even at the time, even though the entire nation, the entire world was watching, no one really understood what was happening. what began as a shooting became an incredible struggle for power and ambition. the result was the brutal death of one of our most promising leaders at the hands of his own physicians. this is an intimate, heartbreaking story of ignorance versus science, the greed versus heroism. james garfield was not, as he has often been remember to be,

just a bland bearded 19th century politician. on the contrary. that is the wrong picture. i am not sure what went up but on the contrary. he was one of the most extraordinary man ever elected president. although he was born into desperate poverty, he became a professor of literature, mathematics and ancient languages and he was just a sophomore in college. by the time he was 26 years old, he was a college president. he knew the entire -- i heart in -- the entire aneid by heart in latin. while he was in congress, he wrote an original proof of the pythagorean theory.

to me though, what is more inspirational and more astonishing, even then garfield's brilliance was his decency. you know, i wrote a book about theodore roosevelt and i have great admiration for him. he was a firebrand. he was the hero, the center of every drama. that is not garfield. garfield was the columnist -- calmest, wisest man in the room. he was a good, kind, honest man who was just trying his best. he was a real person, not consumed by ego and ambition someone who was simply trying to do the right thing. even after 17 years in congress and one of the most ruthless vicious eras of machine politics, garfield never changed. his friends used to marvel at his forbearance even in the face of the most brutal personal attacks, but garfield was incapable of holding a grudge. he used to just shrug and say, i am a hater.

although garfield took his presidency very seriously, he had never had what he called presidential fever. in fact he never really ran for any office. people asked him to run and he did, but he would never even campaign. he always made it clear that he was going to follow his own will conscience and convictions and if people didn't agree with him, they shouldn't vote for him. a way when garfield went to the to when garfield went to the republican convention in the summer of 1880, not only was he not a candidate, he didn't even want to be one. he had gone there to give a speech, and he was kicking himself because he wasn't prepared. he wrote a letter home telling his wife that he was just sick about the fact that he hadn't written his speech before the convention and now he wouldn't

have time. the convention was an enormous hall in chicago. there were 15,000 people there and the favorite to win by far was ulysses s. grant. he was trying for his third term inhe was trying for his third term in the white house. in the midst of this chaos and noise, thousands of people garfield got up to speak and his speech was so powerful and so eloquent, and again largely extemporaneous, that the hall slowly fell silent until the will only thing you could hear was garfield's voice and everyone was just riveted. he they were spellbound. you know what you are in a and at one point, garfield said, and so gentlemen i ask you, what do we want? someone shouted, we want garfield. all and the entire hall just went crazy and when the as balloting began, delegates you began casting their ballots will for garfield, even though again he wasn't even a candidate, and he stood up and

he objected but the votes kept coming and he couldn't stop what was happening and what was a trickle became a stream, became a river and then finally a flood of votes and before garfield knew it, he was the republican nominee for president of the united states. what i found again and again and again while i was researching this book was that not only was garfield's life and nomination and brief presidency full of incredible stories, but the people who surrounded him were also unbelievable. he just couldn't make them up. first of course is chalres guiteau. guiteau was a deeply, it dangerously delusional man but he was very intelligent and highly articulate. if you read nearly any other account of garfield's fascination, guiteau is described as a disgruntled

office speaker but that doesn't cover the smallest part of it. he was a uniquely american character. he was the product of this country at that time, a time when there was a lot of play and there was no one to really understand what he was up to and hold him to account for it. guiteau was a self-made madman. he was smart and scrappy. he was a clever opportunist and he would probably have been very successful if he hadn't been insane. guiteau had tried everything and mail he had failed at everything. he had tried law, evangelism even a free love commune in the 1800's and he had failed even at that.