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.

the women in the commune nick and i named him "charles get out." [laughter] but he survived on sheer audacity. he traveled all over the country by train, never bought a ticket. you are he took great pride in you are moving from boarding house to boarding house, slipping out when the rent was due. in and even when he occasionally worked as a bill collector, he would just keep whatever he managed to collect. after the republican convention, guiteau became obsessed with garfield and immediately after a garfield and immediately after the election, he began to stalk the president. he went to the white house nearly every day. at one point he even walked into the president's office while the president was in it. he even attended a reception and introduced himself to garfield's wife. he shook her hand, he gave her his card and he slowly pronounced his name so she wouldn't forget him. it was like a hitchcock movie. it is incredibly creepy and absolutely terrifying.

finally, guiteau had what he believed was a divine inspiration. god wanted him to kill the president. it was nothing personal he would later say, simply god's will. as strange and fascinating and nearly as dangerous as guiteau was, senator roscoe conkling and that is chester arthur. we skipped his picture. conkling was pretty vicious. conkling was a vain and preening brutally powerful machine politician who appointed himself garfield's enemy. there is conkling. he wore a canary yellow waistcoat. he use lavender ink. he had as you can see this great spit curl in the middle of his forehead and he would coil at the slightest touch. in fact his vanity was so outsized that he was famously

ridiculed for it by another congressman on the floor of congress. but conkling was no joke. he was dangerously powerful. as a senior senator from new york he controlled the new york customs house, which was the largest federal office in the united states and controlled 70% of the countries customs revenue. conkling tightly controlled patronage within his state and he expected complete and unquestioning loyalty. in fact, his apartment in new york was known as the morgue. conkling was in a rage when his candidate, former president grant, didn't get the nomination but he was apoplectic when he realized that he couldn't control garfield. to conkling, the attempt on garfield's life was his ticket back into power. but for the first time in

conkling's life, nothing turned out as he planned. chester arthur was garfield's vice president, but he was conkling's man, and politically he was completely conkling's creation. in fact the only other political office he had ever held was as the collector of the new york customs house, a position that conkling threw president grant had given to him. in that position he made as much money as the president and he never showed up for work before noon. arthur preferred a life of leisure. he liked old wine, late dinner parties and was nearly as ee even moved his birthdate back here to appear more youthful. even within the republican party arthur's nomination was considered a ridiculous. after the election he went on vacations with conkling. he even lived with him for a time in d.c., and he took every

opportunity to publicly criticize the president. and then suddenly everything changed. after garfield was shot, arthur made a transformation so stunning and complete that no one could believe it. the entire country was horrified by thought that chester arthur might be president, but unlike conkling arthur was sickened and grief stick and by the shootings. the last thing that he wanted was for garfield to die. he hid himself from public view. he refused even to go to washington for fear that it would look like he was waiting in the wings and he cut himself off from conkling. finally come after turning his back on the man who had made him, arthur found moral strength in the most unlikely of places the letters of a young invalid woman named julius and.

sands believed in arthur when no one else did, when he didn't even believe in himself. after the shooting sand road to author, if there is spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine. faith in your better nature forces me to write to you, but not to ask you to resign. it is more difficult and more brave reform. and to everyone's amazement not least of all arthur's he did it. he changed dramatically and he tried to be the president garfield would have been had he lived. he became an honest and respected leader and he never forgot julius sand. not only did he keep her letters, he wrote her back and he even went to visit her. one day after sunday dinner she was at her brother's house and a highly polished carriage pulled

up in front of the house and to sand's astonishment resident arthur stepped out. he had come to thank her in person for her help. the reason arthur became president was not because of his madness or even conkling's political maneuvering but the ambition, ignorance and dangerous arrogance of the man who assumed control of garfield's medical care, dr. willard bliss. that's right, his first name was doctor. [laughter] his parents had named him doctor bliss was a well-known surgeon with a practice and in fact he had been one of the doctors at abraham lincoln's bedside that he had far from a sterling reputation. he had enthusiasticly sold something which was supposed to cure cancer, syphilis, ulcers, chronic blood diseases, you name it. list had even been disgraced for

- bliss had even been disgraced for taking bribes after he spends a small amount of time in prison. when robert todd lincoln who was garfield's secretary of war bliss saw in this national tragedy a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fame and power. he immediately took charge of the president's medical care even though no one had given him the authority. he just took it. he dismissed the other doctors and he completely isolated garfield in a sick room in the white house. he wouldn't even let him see his secretary of state. and what happened in that room inside the white house, is nothing short of horrifying. bliss and a few surgeon he had handpicked to help him inserted unsterilized fingers and instruments and garfield back again and again, day after day searching for bullets. the last thing bliss wanted was

for garfield to die. he had too much at stake, but his own arrogance and ignorance were slowly and excruciatingly killing the president. the only hope for garfield was to find the bullet and the search, but this was 14 years before the invention of a medical x-ray. what happened next is nothing short of incredible. only the most brazen novelists would make it up. none other than alexander graham bell stepped forward to help. bell, a young restless genius had invented the telephone just five years earlier when he was only 29 years old. 1881, the telephone had earned him some money and a lot of -- -- a lot of fame but he wanted nothing to do with the company that he grown up around it. he said it was hateful to him at all times and that it fettered

him as an inventor. worse even than the business was the lawsuits against the telephone. there were 600 lawsuits against him, five of which went to the united states supreme court. finally, bell had had enough. he said he was sick of the telephone and he quit the bell telephone company. bell just wanted to help people. he had lost both of his brothers to tuberculosis before he was 24 years old. both his wife and his mother were deaf, and he knew that he could make life better for people, maybe even save lives. but he worked so hard that his parents and his wife were terrified that he literally woodwork himself to death. when he was working he wouldn't stop to eat or rest. his only respite was to play the piano deep into the night, but even then he played with such an intensity that his mother, who had taught him to play, called it a musical fever.

when garfield was shot, bill turned his life upside down to help him. it sickened him to think of garfield's doctors blindly searching for the bullets. science he thought should be able to do better than that. bella band and everything he was doing and spends day and night -- bell abandoned everything he was doing and spends day and night inventing something called an induction balance which was basically a metal detector that he hooked up to the telephone receiver. and which he slowly ran over the president's body, listening for telltale buzzing that would tell him where the bullet was lodged. in the end, bell and science were defeated, but not because the invention didn't work. it did work. in fact, it went on to save countless lives before the invention of the medical x-ray. alexander graham bell was defeated by the arrogant ambition and ignorance of the presidents own doctors.

as i began my research for this book, the question that kept coming to me was how could this have happened? what i found was first of all, the presidency in 1881 was very different from the presidency today. first of all secret service. this is 16 years after the assassination of abraham lincoln and there is still no secret service protection for the presidency. garfield had only his 24-year-old private secretary and an aging policeman. not only was the president not protected from the public, but he was expected to interact with them one-on-one, face-to-face, on a daily basis. you have to remember that this is the height of the foil system and many americans believe that they were entitled to government

jobs, even if they had no training or credentials for them. more than that, they insisted on making their case directly to the president himself. garfield was forced to meet with office speakers from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every day, and the situation made him desperate. he longed for time to work and think, and he wondered why anyone would ever want to be president. but while he found it tiresome and even maddening he never considered them to be dangerous. he said that assassination can no more be guarded against then death by lightning and it is best not to worry about either. he walked all around the city by himself all the time. in fact one night he left the white house, he walked down the street to the secretary of state's house, they walked along together through the streets of

washington with guiteau following them the entire way, holding a loaded gun. in fact, by the time -- by that time guiteau had been stalking the president for weeks. he had even followed him to church and had considered shooting him in church. finally, he made his decision. the president he knew would be at the baltimore train station in washington d.c. on the morning of july 2, 1881 and guiteau would be waiting. the moment guiteau -- the moment garfield walked into the station that warning guiteau stepped out of the shadows and shot him twice. the first bullet hit the president in the arm and the second ripped through his back. by an incredible stroke of luck however, guiteau didn't kill garfield. he only wanted him. the bullet that tore through his back didn't hit his spinal cord. it didn't hit any vital organs. today he was -- would spend two nights in a hospital. even if he had been left alone he almost certainly would have

survived. fortunately for garfield ann the nation, dr. bliss stepped in. ballistic advantage of the fear in the chaos that followed the shooting to assume control of garfield's medical care. but he was not only ambitious and arrogant, he adhered to the most traditional medical methods of the time. bliss gave garfield a gunshot victim, rich food and alcohol. he took great satisfaction in what he called the healthy issuing from the presidents infected wound and he avoided any treatment he considered to be new and radical, including antisepsis. the renowned producer john joseph lister had discovered antisepsis the prevention of infection destroying germs 16 years earlier. the death rate in his surgical ward had plummeted and he had traveled all around, begging doctors to sterilize their hands and their instruments, and

warning them that if they didn't, they ran the very real risk of killing their patient. by 1881 and antisepsis was one widely accepted in europe, but the most experienced and respected doctors in the united states still dismissed it as useless, even dangerous. some still didn't even really believe in germs. they laughingly referred to them as invisible germs, and they certainly didn't want to go to all the trouble that antisepsis required to kill them. they took great pride in what they called the good old surgical stink. they would not change or wash their surgical aprons because they believe that the more blood and pus that was on them the more experienced it showed. even though to try and processes had little success for reasons that today seem painfully clear, they would sterilize their

knives, but if they drop them during surgery they would just pick them up and continue using them. if they needed both of their hands during surgery, they would hold the knife in their teeth and then use it. even alexander graham bell could not outrace infection that was coursing through garfield's body. the story however doesn't end there. garfield's death brought about ingarfield's death brought about tremendous changes, changes in medicine, and politics, in the fabric of our nation. as soon as garfield's autopsy was released, and the american people understood that their president didn't have to die and they understood why he did. bliss was publicly disgraced and antisepsis was adopted across the country. americans turned their rage and

their grief on the political system that would encourage a madman like guiteau. chester arthur himself who owed his entire career to patronage signed the pendleton act which was the beginning of the end of the foil system. garfield also brought the countries together in a way that it not be seen since the civil war. lincoln's assassination had only deepened the divide but garfield had been the first president who was accepted by the south since the civil war. he was accepted as a leader of the whole country, north and south, immigrant and pioneer freedmen and former slave owners. his death was their loss and their common grief brought them together. above all, garfield's death changed the presidency itself. you could argue that this really marked the end of the idealistic or perhaps naive concept of the president alone beating with office speakers, personally making appointments at every level in government.

it was obviously an unworkable system for many reasons. it was open to corruption. it was completely inefficient, and it was personally dangerous. it would never have worked as the united states grew into a major world power and it is good that it is gone. but at the same time, these changes also make it almost impossible to ever again elect someone like garfield. the presidency today is not about a single person but about a large complex institution. the president may be our greatest political celebrity but his personal power is bounded by and filtered through many layers. he is surrounded by elaborate security. his contact with the public is carefully controlled and he operates in this bubble of secret service officers, high officials and the press.

it is very unlikely that what happened to garfield could happen today, but by the same token even if we could find someone like garfield, we couldn't elect him. the presidency is too big and too distant for americans to be able to choose someone who isn't even trying to be elected. it seems to be open only to people who are willing to sacrifice almost anything to become president. we have hopefully outgrown the day when a madman can just walk into the oval office and an incompetent doctor can seize control of the white house for nearly three months, murdering the president in the process. but we likely have also outgrown the day when americans can recognize the promise of a fine, honest man, man with no financial report, no political machine, nothing but the strength of his own words and ideas, and in a shining moment of democracy make him our leader.

thank you. [applause] happy to take questions. >> if you are going to ask a question please approach the microphone and speak into the microphone please. thank you. >> marvelous presentation. were there any among garfield's family, friends or subordinate to champions bill's machine over lister's methods and if so, how did that play out? >> well, bell himself offered his help.

he as i said quit the bell telephone company and he had opened a small laboratory in d.c. as soon as the president was shot, he knew that he could help him and he offered his house. by that time, although everything was going great, the president is doing very well yet become desperate so he accepted bell's help. and, interestingly, although as i said, really the most respected, most experienced doctors in the united states dismissed lister's methods. there were some young doctors who had been studying his methods in europe and watch this with growing horror but didn't feel that they could stand up to these well-known doctors. there was i would probably say i am by the way born and raised in ohioan but i've lived in kansas now, and there was a doctor from kansas who wrote to the creation of garfield's wife and told her, don't let them close to one. make sure they sterilize everything but that just never

got through to bliss, who ran things exactly as he wished. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. i don't mean to get you off the track but i am thinking that garfield played a very significant role in the 1876 election and the commission that actually elected the president and if i'm right about that could you tell me little bit about that? >> that was a very controversial election in which hayes was given the presidency. i'm not sure to be honest exactly how much of a role garfield played in that. but, it was interesting in that everyone was very closely watching the election of 1880, because of this and also because it was such a stunning nomination for garfield at the republican convention so this the selection was closely watched by everyone except for garfield who was very happily here with his family, doing

experiments and was thrilled he had a campaign which was considered unseemly at that time. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. i find it very fascinating the three of our great presidents, lincoln, garfield, and mckinley were all kindly towards african-americans and all assassinated. our calendar this year is the same as 1881, and it was on this date on a thursday and tomorrow that garfield's body lay in state in the nation's capital. i would just thank you for coming here on this day to our hometown. thank you. [applause] >> my honor, thank you. [applause] >> hi. what do you think about garfield to quit being a general one of the civil war were still raging to go back into politics? what is your response about garfield as a politician? >> well garfield didn't want to. abraham lincoln asked him to come back. he needed him back in congress fighting the fight that lincoln had, and garfield understood

that. it was difficult for him. you know, he loved his regiment which was, many of whom are made up from boys from the institute. so it was a difficult decision for him and he felt very passionately about the civil war, not only in keeping the country together but in bringing about abolition. he was a fierce abolitionist and what is our national hero because of his work in the civil war. thank you. >> thank you very much for an excellent presentation. toward the end of your presentation you said this in the last paragraph that dr. bliss was murdering the president. you don't see any malice to him but utter incompetence? and one more question, just a little bit about your background. i'm curious to know how you got interested in the subject.

>> i will address the bliss thing. you are absolutely right. the lasting bliss wanted was for garfield to die. in fact he wrote a letter to a friend on white house stationery saying, i can't afford to have him die underlining each word. he was desperate. he worked night and day. he lost his house, he lost his practice, but he was incredibly arrogant. he dismissed all the other doctors and he was woefully ignorant. he knew about antisepsis, and so you know, you have to judge them on that. your other question was how i got interested in this? to be honest, i didn't, even though i grew up in ohio it didn't know much about garfield be on the fact that he had been assassinated and i wasn't necessarily interested in writing about another president but i was interested in science.

and i was researching alexander graham bell and i stumbled upon the story of so they trying to save garfield after garfield was shot. i was done because first of all i'd never heard the story and secondly, i couldn't understand why bell, who really was at the height of his fame and his power, would turn his life upside down to do this. i mean, he had a family in boston, his wife and his children. his wife was pregnant and they had been planning on going to maine because it was incredibly hot and he had just left them and spend all of this time night and day working on this. so it made me wonder, why would he do that and what was garfield like? when i started to research garfield, i was completely captivated, and i knew i had to tell the story. >> hi candice. how are you? i want to follow in his same thing. i know that you are from a small town in ohio, and are a product of public education. how did you become a inspired to be a writer? >> that is a great question.

you know, i didn't ever think i would be a writer. i was a reader. i was a voracious reader. i love to read and i thought it would probably teach, and i got an undergraduate masters degree in literature and thought i was going to go on to get mike ph.d. but to be hones,t i hated -- but, to be honest, i hated literary criticism. [laughter] and i realized that i really wanted to write, so really it was a process. it wasn't at all overnight. it was little by little. i had gotten my masters at baylor and i moved home, moved in with my parents, literally open the yellow pages calling every publisher in town looking for a job and had all of these little magazine jobs are going work for a magazine for veterinarians and never even had a pet. [laughter] knew nothing, sort of figuring out and finally got my dream job when i was 28 years old, working at "national geographic." i was a researcher the first year but they have this terrific blind tests were a riding position on the magazine, and i applied along with 300 other

people. i got the job and it was like the best thing that ever happened to me up to that point, and i did that for six years until i got the idea for my first book. it has been a journey but it has been wonderful. >> hi. one the doctor was working on garfield, why didn't mrs. garfield tell the doctor to stop working on garfield? >> that is a wonderful question. you know, this was a time of chaos and confusion and fear and bliss came forward very confidently and in fact he wrote a letter to the other doctors saying, the president and i thank you for your helping concerned that your efforts won't be necessary any longer, even though garfield and lucretia had never given him that authority.

to lucretia, even though most doctors knew about antisepsis, lucretia didn't and she didn't really understand what was happening but she did keep on her doctor. she had a female doctor which is there a rare at the time, dr. edson whom they called mrs. dr. edson because they were so uncomfortable with a woman doctor but dr. edson refused to go away when to bliss's great annoyance and they said a ride you can stay but not as a doctor but as a nurse. she stated she did what she could. she did what she could. >> what town are you from and can i find the book in the library by now? >> i was born in marion, ohio and i grew up in lexington. i think my book is in the

libraries by now. thank you for asking. i hope you read it. >> what's it like to be an author and if you are going to write another book, what is it going to be about? >> it's really fun. i recommend it highly. the best part for me is doing research because you get to do all these incredible things. when i wrote the first book, it is about a river in the amazon. i got to go to that river. i hired a pilot and a small plane and i flew for hours over unbroken jungle. i met this isolated group of tribesmen. their grandparents and great grandparents had attacked roosevelt's group and they remembered it. researching this book was

different. the other book was difficult physically. this book was difficult emotionally because i became attached to garfield. i kept wanting to yell stop. reading his diary, reading his children's diaries seeing a section of garfield's spine used during trial. there is a jar with pieces of john wilkes booth's brain to see

if you could see any physical evidence of insanity. i am working on another book. i can't get into the details about it because it is really early. it is going to be about winston churchill. thank you for your question. >> ira member hearing about the story of alexander graham bell. i heard that the thing he did for the president did work but it went off all the time. what they didn't realize is that it did work but it was picking up the metal bed springs and they had a hard time finding the bullet. >> he asked them if the president -- it was a very new, very rare thing to have a mattress with metal springs in it. they said no. he was on a bed with metal

springs. obviously that will affect a metal detector. another reason they didn't find the bullet is because they were only looking on the right side. the bullet was on the left side. >> i was curious about the old cliche, ignorance is bliss. is this where it comes from? [laughter] >> i have that in the book, that is very perceptive of you. after the autopsy results and bliss was disgraced, one of the doctors said this is proof that ignorance is bliss. it comes from a polymer in the 1700s. -- it comes from a poem in the 1700s.

>> did you write any fiction books? >> no, i haven't written fiction yet. fiction writing is very different. i read a lot of fiction and i love it and i've gone to a lot of talks by fiction writers. i always marvel at myself because they will say, what is your process? and they say they let the story lead them and they follow their characters. to me, that is a nightmare. my process is that i spent three years writing a book. the first year is doing foundational research. the entire second year i spent going through that research and outlining. i always outline it is really important. it saves you a lot of pain. i work on structure for an entire year. only then do i start writing. throughout, i will find holes in

my research and i will go back and do more. >> that's what my teacher says. [laughter] >> he is right. you can't get the outlines. sorry. >> i would like to know what does the term "political machine" mean? >> this time was incredibly corrupt and lots of power mongering. i'm sure you've heard of the gilded age from mark twain. that comes from a time of rampant corruption. bullying and things are not perfect now. if you look at that time, we are a lot better off. >> when you're doing your

research and you can use the diaries, how are you able to obtain those? do have to get permission from the family? >> most of garfield's papers are at the library and anybody can see them. you just need a driver's license. you get an id card. they are very strict with their roles. they obviously should be. neither national treasures. i am a good person and i very carefully follow the rules. you are only allowed to have one card at a time. you can only have one been on your desk -- bin on your desk at a time and one folder from that bin at a time.

i find an envelope and what of the folders and all of this hair falls out. and the note says "hair from president garfield on his deathbed." i got my career was over but it is always an adventure. >> you mentioned lucretia garfield's letters. are those published? >> lucretia's diary is at the back of the last volume of garfield's published diary. there is a wonderful volume of letters between lucretia and james. they only sent -- the only spent five months together during the first five years of their marriage.

he was either in war or in the white house. she cap all of those letters -- she cap to all of those letters. lucretia understood who he was and she understood that he would leave a legacy. their early marriage was very difficult. she kept all of them and they are very beautiful. she was brilliant and his equal intellectually. i would highly recommend the book on her letters. >> thank you for a very enjoyable evening. i have one question. you talked about james garfield being a multifaceted, multi talented man very how do you rank him with the others? >> to

me personally, and i am obviously biased, i believe he would have been one of our great residence. it is impossible to know because he was in office for such a short time. i am a great admirer of jefferson, lincoln. honestly i think that garfield had a mind like jefferson and a heart like lincoln. >> i agree. thank you. >> is it hard to find research on him? >> it's like being a detective. it's really fun in that way. you get to search and search. when i begin, i cast a very wide net. i look everywhere and every place. i look in the obvious places. i went to the college where he was a student.

i went to the library of congress. little universities have bits and pieces here and there. it's like a treasure hunt. it is a lot of fun. any other questions? >> i have one question to add to the thing about dr. bliss. was there any government action taken against him or prosecuted? did they ever investigate his ineptitude? >> they didn't. the country was heartbroken and enraged and focusing on charles good toe bash -- charles. he had the insanity defense and

the country was worried he would get off. bliss never admitted he had done anything wrong. he insisted that he had given the very best medical care to the president. he handed congress a very expensive bill for his work and was outraged when congress refused to pay it. >> thank you. >> i have several small questions. have you ever talked to the group out of highland college about this? >> i did research there but i haven't spoken with any groups there. >> do you think this would make a good book for a movie? >> yes. [laughter] [applause] >> i think it would make an excellent book for a movie. i can hardly wait to see it come out. my father was an ordained minister in the same church that

garfield went to. i heard somebody say that he wrote -- he rode a horse from here over to the christian church. do you know if that is true? >> i don't know that story. i would love to hear it. >> that's what i heard. thank you very much. >> thank you everyone. i really enjoyed it. [applause] >> are you ok to go back to your table? >> as the unelected -- [laughter] but the senior member in this part of the country i want to

thank you for an absolutely extraordinary undertaking that you took on and achieved so mightily. you have humanized someone who is a ghost of the past who many people who didn't even know the ghost was there. there have been things written about him and about the family in the past. nothing begins to compare with what you have done here. thank you very much. [applause] >> on history bookshelves, here from the country's best history writers of the past decade. every saturday. to watch these programs anytime, visit our website. you are watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. this year, c-span is touring

cities across the country. exploring american history. next, a look at our recent visit to galveston, texas. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> our collecting policy is collecting anything related to galveston from its founding in the 1830's to the present. as well as documents relating to the history of the early republic of texas up to the civil war. most of our patrons come in looking for genealogy information. galveston was a port of entry for immigrants. there is a lot of genealogists coming here looking for information on their ancestors. the first thing i want to show you is our oldest map in the collection. it is a map of -- done by john baptiste bernard taylor hart.

in 1721, it is the earliest known rendering of galveston harbor and they. the reason i wanted to show it is because a lot of historians were unaware that this was a drawing of galveston and the harbor. they thought it was done of a different day. -- a different bay. it is the earliest known rendering of the island, the harbor, and the natural bay. some of the other items we will look at today are documents from the collections of some of the founders of galveston. they are the earliest collections that we have here in the history center. we will head out to the reading room and take a look at the documents out there. the city began in 1836 or 1837 after texas won its independence

from mexico. since galveston was already a major port, they wanted to start the city here. a group of men were entrusted with the task of setting up a city on the island. the next document is also from the james morgan papers, who was also an early founder of galveston. it actually lists the original stockholders of the galveston city company. here, you can see mckinney and williams who were in partnership together and have their own business. mckinney and williams were actually businessmen and they were cotton traders. they really wanted to establish themselves as the primary route for cotton growers in texas to transport their cotton out of

the republic of texas. they pretty much wanted to have -- be the primary transporters of that. they are businessmen, merchants primarily. the next letter we are going to look at is a letter written from andrew jackson to sam houston. andrew jackson at this point is in retirement at the hermitage in tennessee and sam houston is president of texas. it is written in january of 1844. sam houston new andrew jackson from his time back east. he had served under andrew jackson in the military. he was involved in politics in tennessee. he and andrew jackson knew each other from before houston's time in texas. circumstances pushed houston to texas.

he became involved in the effort here to gain independence and the push for annexation and joining the united states. that issue had gone back and forth between prior presidents of texas and u.s. presidents both sides at one point or another refusing. there were issues going on annexing a state that accepted slavery was an issue. great britain getting involved was spurring the united states to annex the state of texas. finally, in 1844 during the election, it became a major issue. it gets revisited again. andrew jackson writes to his old friend, sam houston, basically saying that it would really benefit the future prosperity of

texas and the united states for this to happen. he ends the letter saying "god bless you and yours and grant you prosperity in this life and the life to come." the next item we are going to look at is a recent acquisition. it relates to the 1900 storm. the 1900 storm for galveston is a major event in the island's history. there has been a lot written about it and said about it, but it still lingers today. it is still very much a part of galveston tony and's history and lives today. this letter is a frequent -- this letter is a recent acquisition and it is from francis lister who was a railroad agent. it was written to his two sons. it is a letter basically describing what happened to him

and his family during the storm and it goes into great detail about the water rising and the wind picking out. what happened to them through the night of september 8. it is basically letting the boys know that they are ok. he had already sent them telegrams, but i guess he wanted to go into more detail and let them know what happened during that night. it is very poignant. the detail is very descriptive and it really gives you a good idea of the horrors these people suffered. just give you an idea of how horrible the night was, we can read about the water rising and the wind taking up and houses being moved off of their foundations. mr. lister in his letter rights that he needed to send his wife

and daughter off the island because he was afraid of the disease and he was afraid of an epidemic. he writes, "we will send mama and anna to palestine as soon as i can get them out of here. the town will be visited by an epidemic i think. in any case, they are so terribly shocked that they must be taken away from here." that gives you an idea of the trauma that the family and so many others suffered during the hurricane. >> the rosenberg library is unique in that it has not only an archive and a book collection, but also a museum. we have approximately 8000 objects in the museum collection, including artwork, textiles weaponry, glass, all sorts of wonderful things. recently, the smithsonian portrait gallery had an exhibit on new york 1812 and barred from

us this wonderful portrait of john lafitte who had a base here in galveston after the war of 1812. he came here about 1815 or so. relations between lafitte and the u.s. government had soured and he was, in fact, hired on as informants for spain which, at the time, mexico is trying to gain independence from spain. he is galveston as a base of operations for not only spying but also his privateering endeavors. it's a really unique piece. a local family was building a mansion between 24th and 25th street on broadway. when they tore down the old house and were laying the foundation for the new one, they discovered a number of confederate