most important site in the confederacy. the navy begins building at in order to protect this important site. there was the fear that the union navy would mount an attack up the chattahoochee river in order to take the city. the reason that columbus is important is because of the industrial capacity. they are producing a, uniforms munitions. this is where the columbus depot was. the uniforms produced here went largely to the western army. this is an internal way for the confederates to produce their own material rather than having to import so much from outside. construction began in 1862 and she was launched into the river in 1864. wilson's raid came through.

the battle of columbus took place in 1865. james wilson is a union cavalry officer. their job was to attack the states of alabama and georgia. their goal was to destroy important targets like columbus because of industrial output. they wanted to disrupt supply lines and communications, anything to further along the collapse of the confederacy. an ironclad like the jackson would be used at a port city. if there was an approaching army, the vessel can move up and down the waterway and fire its big guns at the opposing forces.

this is what confederate ironclad's did. she is right at completion in april 1865. there is no crew yet. the navy has her on the list as the next ship to the commission to. the war is winding down and the confederacy is collapsing. during the battle of columbus, she said of the navy yard. the navy guys never could come aboard and get her steam up here in there was not enough men available to do that. it's a nice showpiece. the next morning, wilson's men came into the navy yard and they

started burning everything. they can't leave a weapon like this behind. they stuffed flammables all over the ship and they set it on fire and they cast it loosed into the river. for two weeks it was slowly floating downstream and burning. there is a debris field between the final wreck site. it got caught in the river and sank. the water finally put up the fire and we have what is left now. she was 225 feet long and 57 feet wide. she weighed 2000 tons. the majority of the ship is made out of wood. the whole is made out of pine.

we are at ground level. we are at the back of the case. this gives us a vanish to see what the hall would look like. notice at the bottom is flat. the draft is not very deep. this was designed for river travel. it was designed not to go into the open ocean. up here, this would quite as an edge. this is where the iron plates would come down and wraparound the knuckle. you have the waterline here and the iron plate comes here. things are resting on this would plight. if you'll notice, the wood

planks, the boards look like they've got cracks in between them. this was a problem when a vessel was recovered. they let it dry out. it contracted and constricted. when she was launched in the river, one of the local newspaper reporters noted that she floated like a duck on a pond. that's an amazing job of these constructors did on this vessel. you are looking toward the stern of the vessel. moving forward, you can see where the shafts of the propeller are embedded into the hall of the ship. the shafts would have been coming forward toward the

pistons of the steamship. you've got two of those. right here, this is where the steam engine would sit. you have boilers right here. we've got every creation of the smokestack. it's going straight up. it extends 40 feet. from this vantage point, we can look down on the jackson. we are at four deck level. you are looking toward the main casemate of the ironclad. those oval shapes are the gun points -- ports. it was equipped with full -- six

brooke rifles. it had a range of five miles. it had a solid round about 120 pounds. the vertro rifle that we are firing today is one of the guns built specifically for the jackson. it was cast at the somma name all -- naval works. it was completed in 1865. >> ready. fire. >> you've got the explosion. it was so effective. after the war, people knew where

she went down. it's not a question of having to discover where she was. the physical process of recovering the jackson took place in the early 1960's. they began working on that process in 1961. they started to build a coffer around the wreck site. they wanted to flush the water out of the interior. they had to start digging the gunboat out of the mud. when they pull the vessel out they had to tow this material back up the river. they've got some flotation devices under it. they are pulling the two pieces of the rack up the chattahoochee river with a tugboat. they have to lift it with cranes. that was at the location of the

old museum. they began construction of this facility. it was completed in 2001. in order to move this vessel to this location, they used one of those big trucks that they move houses on. they had to move it very carefully down one of the streets of columbus. they built three sides. they backed the hall in here and set the braces under it. once they got everything in here and in place, they built the back wall of the building. it was an amazing engineering feat. there are only four ironclad's that we can study right now. the jackson is right here.

this tells the story of this particular ironclad and it shows people there were more than one or two. there were many. we have one of the best examples of that right here. >> we think of hybrids as cars electricity and gasoline. if you ask someone about hybrids in the 19th century, they will talk about ships. this is a combination of sale and steam power. there are large masts that carry large sales. it's also got a steam engine. the chattahoochee is named after the river. it was a regular gunboat.

it was operating up and down the river. it's the only gunboat that has survived to this day. we've only got the aft section. it's only a portion of the ship. we tried to see what the ship represents in the entirety of the navy. it was built right here on the chattahoochee river. steam engines and propellers are coming from columbus. this is what columbus was able to produce during the war. the chattahoochee was not the best built ship. she started out as a plantation owner.

he decided he was going to build a ship and donated for the war. he began to construct this. he hired laborers and that was the biggest problem, finding enough skilled people to work on a ship of this size. the confederate navy eventually took operation over. they completed it and put into operation in 1863. in june of 1863, she is north of chattahoochee, florida. her boiler exploded. several sailors were killed or injured. the injured are brought back to columbus.

there were 19 sailors killed because of that. that is the only real action that she saw was a boiler explosion. the navy went down to the wreck site and raised her and brought her back to columbus. they put her back into operation. this leads us to the battle of columbus when they blew her up to avoid capture. there were three captains. the first was the captain of the ironclad virginia. in 1862, he is transferred to columbus. he is the first to captain the chattahoochee. he stays in command for about a year. we have two more captains after that. the crew is a strange

combination of individuals river rats from port cities all the way to apalachicola. anytime you have the opportunity to preserve a ship it's a very expensive undertaking. most people don't make the connection. we can drive almost anywhere. in an earlier age, most people when they traveled distances they had to travel by water. this represents the basic transportation needs of an earlier time. we hope that people understand the links and the extent the confederates go to to be able to conduct a war against an

industrially superior opponent. the war was eventually won by the north. we want to give a sense of local history. this is a real aspect of local history. this was built by local people. they completed a project for a greater goal. >> back now live to ford's theatre. we are covering a symposium on abraham lincoln's life and legacy. the next speaker is richard fox. what lincoln was thinking. the opening remarks are underway. >> i think it's appropriate for

someone who doesn't have a reputation for telling the truth. the most important book is this one. it's called "lincoln's body." it deals with the assassination up to steven spielberg's movie. richard tells me i should urge you to buy it. you don't need to read it, be sure to buy it. he will be glad to sign it. by way of enticing you to do that, i just want to read you the final paragraph. if lincoln had not completed his work in 1865, he exemplified more than anyone before him the ideal republican life course self improvement in use, public

service in adulthood, and sacrifice or the people at the peak of his powers. for one who is worried in his 30's about having done nothing to make anyone remember he had lived, he comes through better that he could've hoped for. he surpassed his goal. please join me in welcoming richard fox. [applause] richard: michael is not telling the truth. i said nothing about buying my book. it's not enough to say i am excited to be here. that doesn't begin to express my

feelings standing on the stage. i want to thank a couple of people. my first reaction was, you can't be serious. yes, i was pleased to be invited. i want to thank shayla for her organizing expertise. i want to thank michael, he spoke of our being friends. it was a deep pleasure to meet him in the madison reading room at the library of congress. that proved that michael was

always on the road. it was inconceivable that i would've met him that many times if he was not. he confirmed that he always was on the road. i'm excited because in the audience for the first time, i have my son and daughter also my brother and sister-in-law from virginia. my daughter came up today from south carolina. international reunion. i think ford's theater in itself has something to do with this magnetic pole.

i'm going to talk today about what lincoln was thinking on april 14, 1865. i'm an author of lincoln's body i will leave aside what if they in my book and will instead talk on lincoln's mind. but as you will see, the body makes an appearance of this discussion of what lincoln was thinking. i will be making a reference several times to the word republican. i want to urge you to remember that i never mean the republican party when i say republican. i mean lincoln's republicanism his philosophy of both government and life. i argue in my book that he subscribed to republicanism is a doctrine about -- as a doctrine about the body politic. but he also thought of

republicanism as his way of life. i will make a brief allusion to that to clarify what it means. think of the word republican is having a lowercase r got an uppercase r. i don't think i ever mention the republican party. to let you know that i'm quoting someone, rather than say quote unquore,te, i was go like that if i'm quoting. and you will know. what was april thinking on april 14 1865? this question captivated millions in the spring of 1865. it intrigued many millions more over the last century and a half. on the evening of the 14th in this theater, president abraham lincoln suddenly stopped thinking.

the extinction of his mind made his earlier hours of conscious life on that day all the more urgently absorbing. what had he been thinking just before the end? what had he been thinking all day long after rousing himself sometime before 8:00 a.m. for breakfast with his family. his entire family, including his wife mary, 12-year-old and 21-year-old, a union army officer just back from virginia. people hoped against hope that lincoln had found some peace of mind on his last day. some relief as speaker of the house schuyler colfax put it in his eulogy for him on april 30. from the cares and perplexities that so constantly pressed him keeping his mind of the severest attention. like a bent bow, so it almost

lost its spring. the search for what lincoln was thinking on april 14 was made all the more intense by what northerners learned with a shutter on april 15 -- lincoln had expired without uttering any genuine last words, that is words of infection -- affection or instruction, spoken an awareness of one's impending death. by shooting lincoln by the head just by the left ear, john wilkes booth had snuffed out the president's capacity to speak, as well as think. leaving his compatriots reeling. they needed last words to savor and burnish in their own minds and pass on to their children. unlike william henry harrison, and zachary taylor, who had died in office of illness in 1841 and

1850, and bestowed momentous last words upon their families physicians, and fellow citizens, lincoln was ripped away with stark, unanswerable finality. as colfax said, booth had fired with his derringer held close to the skull that the bullet might be buried in his brain -- not just to kill the president, but in order that consciousness might end with the instant. four days after lincoln's death at the white house funeral ceremony attended by 600 invited deaths, of whom six were women, the presiding middle -- minister voice to the opinion of selecting of -- afflicting a mass of northerners that were traumatized by the abruptness of

his departure. they had been deprived of the solace of dying word that would have been ever dear to us. dying words. such a resident -- resonant pun. words of the dying person, and words that are dying out like the departing trains whistle in the night. some of those present at lincoln's death spent across the street from four theater and pearson house were so eager for last words from lincoln that they kept hoping in spite of the severe head trauma that he would wake up and speak as he lay on his deathbed. one can understand mary lincoln's shrieking out in her bottomless grief across the street, calling for young tad to be brought over from the white house as the sound of his voice

she believed, might revive his father. it's more surprising to find a 23-year-old surgeon who first ran to the stricken presidents aid voicing the same hope, that lincoln might rouse himself to consciousness. writing nearly a half-century later, he said he knew in 1865 that unconscious patients suffering severe head wounds could sometimes regain recognition and reason just before departure. if there was a chance that lincoln would admit even a single word the dozen or so men who remained by his bedside at the very end were determined not to miss it. even as they waited all night for possible last words the doctor and several others standing around the deathbed turned to lincoln's body for a

final message. his mind destroyed, the president soldiered on, sucking and oxygen and pumping blood as best he could. for another nine hours. one after another, as a leader recalled, bedside mourners sought stalwart service in the president's attempts to survive. his bare chest and arms exposed to their view for the first time ever, they were taken aback by his indoor miss sinewy torso. a normal man the doctors whispered would have survived only an hour to with this kind of trauma to the skull. lincoln endured for five times as long. demonstrating with every breath his republican valor. service to the full measure of

devotion. when he finally gave up the struggle for life at 7:22 a.m., his face was fixed in a smile, according to one bedside witness, treasury official. a smile that seemed an effort of life. lincoln had passed on smoothly and contentedly, his facial expression suggesting that inner peace that prevailed as his final state of mind. citizens that about on april 15 looking for confirmation of his tranquil and in whatever evidence remained of lincoln's thinking on april 14. it soon became clear that just at the front -- just as the president had not spoken at all, he had made no public statements

are in the daytime of april 14 that might come for the grieving. whatever revealing remarks he might have made privately to family or friends on april 14 were not yet available. there was no telling when or even if they would trickle out for all to hear. on april 15, people could only turn to the past for virtual last words, spoken by lincoln. substitute final message is of sufficient excellence to remember him by. over the north, 18 word lincoln utterance comprising twop perfectly balanced phrases of four words, six syllables each commanded immediate attention. i want to pause here for a moment of audience for dissipation. i want to know if any of you can already tell me what phrase i am

referring to or two perfectly balanced phrases of two words and for syllables -- six syllables each, 18 word lincoln utterance from the recent past. i can't see very well with the lights, gorgeous your little clapping of hands if you think you know what the answer is. [applause] richard: audience participation time. on three i want you to all together say what you think i'm referring to, so will be one to three speak. one, don't do it fast. take your time. 1, 2 3. >> [indiscernible] richard: perfect. you demonstrated something about the legacy of abraham lincoln that you know those words today.

what is so moving to me is that some of you actually probably have literally ancestors of yours who were present in 1865 that remembered the assassination, the funeral pageant, the entire morning -- mourning period. and they strove to community with a experience to their children. i know for a fact in 1909, the big revival of lincoln on the 100th anniversary of his birth those adults did everything in their power to pass lincoln knowledge and affection towards lincoln on to their children. and so here we are, the legacy of lincoln does, especially with respect to his greatest words live on. i tried in my book two, in effect revive awareness of his

body, which was also, in my view, equally prominent among those ancestors that may have been present at the time of the assassination. with malice towards none, with charity for all, wasn't from lincoln's last speech. but it was from the most recent speech, delivered only a few weeks before, not even six weeks before him i believe on march 4. it was the last lincoln speech to contain such eloquent phrasing, which could supply virtual last words. this was an appeal to the new testaments doctrine of love, along with this appeal to the new testament's doctrine of love, and these words, i say here are still familiar to almost all american college students, even if they can't tell you where the words come from. or even who spoke them. they know those phrases.

along with this momentous a words, -- eight words two other texts last -- fill the gap of last words. they came from lincoln's favorite play and lincoln's favorite paula. shakespeare's macbeth was the play. it provided a stern description of a beloved assassinated leader, king duncan. lincoln had read aloud from macbeth, coincidently, as recently as april 9, maybe the eighth, i forget if he came back from city points. i think it was on the ninth as he returned to washington from richmond and city point aboard the river queen with a party of dignitaries. he may very well have recited the exact words that i'm about to say to you. northerners knew he loved mcbeth area in this king duncan

appeared so often on public banners across the north in the coming days that it became the unofficial slogan of the funeral period in late april and may. shakespeare writes -- he has worn his faculties so meek, has been so clear in his great office, that his virtues will plead like angels trumpet tongued, against the deep dam nation of his taking off -- deep damnation of his taking off. williams favorite poem from the 1820's poem retroactively entitled "mortality." it was equally popular the northern press after the assassination. this is a time when people everywhere read newspapers.

there were thousands of newspapers in the united states in 1865. lincoln had recited as so often from memory that many editors in 1865, desperate like everyone else for a final message from lincoln, claimed he had written it himself. they did so innocently since the lines of mortality have long been attributed to lincoln a mistake fueled by his having said he couldn't remember who had composed it. and by his having resided seven stanzas of the poem without mentioning the author's name, to conclude his eulogy in chicago in 1850 for zachary taylor. two stanzas i have picked arbitrarily, but they are indicative of the whole 14. so the multitude goes like a flower we then withers away to what others succeed.

so the multitude comes, even though as we behold to repeat every tale that has often been told. they died, aye they died, and we things now that walk over the turf that black is their brow, the macon their dwelling the transient abode meet the changes they met under pilgrimage road. i love that phrase come under pilgrimage road. it does aptly describe how lincoln thought about his own life. in addition to quoting noxon shakespeare in their quote for enduring words are member lincoln by, northerners often speculated freely about what lincoln's authentic last words might have been had he lingered long enough to utter them. a favored choice, i think a runaway favorite choice in the then almost entirely christian population came from the last words of jesus -- that jesus was

thought to have delivered on the cross. as schuyler colfax express on april 30 two a vast obvious -- audience is into brian hall. schuyler colfax was the speaker of the house of representatives and friend of lincoln's. as schuyler colfax expressed on april 30 vast audience squeezed into chicago's brian hall, the largest auditorium in the midwest and midwesterners that it was the largest auditorium in the nation. [laughter] richard: lincoln's whole life proves to me that could he had a single final moment of consciousness and of speech, his great heart would have profited him to pray for those who had plotted for his blood, father forgive them, for they know not what they do. without last words, and without

any gripping speech delivered on lincoln's last day, northerners found viable substitutes in his earlier speeches in in his favor play in polymer. soon, some of the actual words he spoke on april 14, reported by those who claim to have heard them from the president or his wife's own lips were written down, and most important of them were made public before the month was out. i'm going to focus this morning on the disclosures made by three people about what lincoln said in their hearing. mary lincoln herself, speaker of the house schuyler colfax, and secretary of the navy gideon welles. and thank you to jonathan for already doing a good job for me on getting welles. taken together, these three accounts give us at least a glimpse of what ligon was thinking within hours of his death.

in fact, they point in an admittedly fragmentary way, not only to what lincoln was thinking on april 14, but how he was thinking about it. they also point to some habits of mind and emotion that lay behind his thinking. taken together, these three reports suggest that the president used some of his waking hours on april 14 to step back from the usual home -- hum of his daily duties, and the policy decisions that occupied him to some extent even on april 14. to reflect a bit of his past and future life. over the course of the day, he engaged in periods of recollection. recollection now usually means an act of remembrance. but in 1865, it is still commonly meant mental or spiritual stock taking.

to recollect was together oneself in, to collect oneself to embark on a personal reflection perhaps even a spiritual meditation. in lincoln's case, the evidence from april 14 suggests a secular not a religious reckoning. for him, those two categories, secular and religious, were fluid. he certainly believed in god. i described him, and here i am thinking about today's common expression that people use all the time elyse and university culture as spiritual but not religious. i would describe lincoln as the illogical, but not religious. above all, he enjoyed trying to puzzle out what god might be up to. in human affairs. on april 14, however, as far as we know, lincoln was not thinking about god area. he took the time to puzzle his

mentor -- ponder his mental circumstances, to think about how his mind work. he pondered his emotional state of mind 10 days earlier when he made a spontaneous decision to march the richmond virginia in the midst of a large crowd. made of mostly african-americans. he took the time to reflect on his relationship with his wife. whether he did each of these things in 30 seconds or 30 minutes, we cap tell. all we know is that according to the available evidence, he turned his mind to all of them on april 14. what lincoln said in his moment of recollection on april 14 come down to us with inevitable distortion. of course, mary lincoln, speaker of the house colfax, and secretary of the navy wells all road town lincoln's alleged words after the assassination.

almost everyone was rattled by the death of lincoln, almost everyone's memories of him were remolded in some fashion by what happened at ford's theater. this is especially true of those people important enough to know before writing to tell the president's alleged words that their testimony would be enshrined in the historical record. mary lincoln, schuyler colfax, and gideon welles with three such people. they possess the power to help shape the memory of lincoln for all time. that power led them and others like them to select and emphasize certainly can words while leaving others aside. i'm going to treat these three reports of what lincoln center april 14 in reverse chronological order. they are all on the same day. some happened later that day. i will start with those.

that gives us mary lincoln is the starting point. and ends after going through schuyler colfax with gideon welles. welles is the most reliable of the witnesses, strickler speaking, because his account of what lincoln said was probably disclosed within a week of the assassination. other officials heard the same lincoln comments that wells heard, giving them the chance in principle to challenge the public report if it was inaccurate. by contrast, the words of lincoln diebold's when his wife and schuyler colfax were heard and recorded only by them. they gave them both free reign, if they so chose, to embellish or even amend with the president had said in their hearing. let's start with mary, the alleged lincoln words she diebold were spoken the latest. that is the closest to the

president's death. in that respect, they come the closest to being literally his last words. within a few days of the assassination, she told her old family physician who had come all the way from springfield illinois to comfort her that during the play at fort's theater, her husband had offered her an unusually affectionate remark, which turned out to be his very last active speech. she had provoked this remark herself my first snuggling up to him and then asking him whether 20-year-old sitting with them in the box as their guest would say about this display of spousal enthusiasm. according to mary, her husband responded lovingly, with the words she won't think anything about it. i hope lincoln spoke those words softly and playfully, and

squeezed her arm as he spoke. for the words themselves are pretty bland. mary had obviously learned long before to settle for a low bar in verbal affection. [laughter] richard: this counted for her is a real gesture of love area seven months later in november of 1865, mary returned to the topic of april 14, telling the artist francis carpenter the unusually gleeful lincoln had also delivered and affection a few sentences to her in their late afternoon carriage ride to the washington navy yard. we must both be more cheerful in the future, she claimed he said great between the war and the loss of our darling will you, we have both been very miserable. even if mary invented some of those words, and even if she

exaggerated lincoln's is the yield to improve their marriage, the overall thrust of her memory seemed more than plausible. if abraham was ever going to voice such sentiments, this would have been the day. several other people noted how eye-popping we happy he was on april 14. looking back months later, mary thought he had been positively euphoric on april 14. of course, lincoln was well known from flashing from one route to another in the course of a single hour, not to speak of a whole day. the assassination might simply have caused his family and friends to delete the moments of discontent that probably mark people 14 -- april 14 too. and why not come up with the sun robber just home from virginia safely -- why not, with his son robert home for virginia safely with a reportedly.

the two of them could look forward to a much greater future together. abraham may have believed you could work on subjecting his emotions to his will. let's move to the second witness to lincoln's thinking of the day of his death. schuyler colfax met with the president and the white house shortly before he and mary departed for ford's theater. colfax also saw him early in the morning. in his eulogy for lincoln, he paraphrase the president several times, asserting in each case the beasley can words had been uttered during an evening meeting. that place them closer to the hour of his death. for colfax to go down in history not only as lincoln's last visitor on that terrible night and the person receiving the last grasp of that generous and loving hand, and his last

goodbye as he left for the theater, but also the last and perhaps one of the very few people to hear him speak candidly about how he felt 10 days earlier when he had walked through downtown richmond. just retaken by union forces hand-in-hand with the sun -- with his son tad. colfax provoked the president's reflection about richmond. he told him northerners had been -- how uneasy northerners had been, some lurking assassin might take his life, but lincoln, armed with his good intentions, colfax went on walked fearlessly and carelessly through the streets carelessly he remains without a care. to colfax's animated concern lincoln replied if anyone else

had been president and gone to richmond, i would have been alarmed also. i was not scared about myself a bit. here again on april 14, lincoln stepped back and reflected on his personal makeup, and on his relations with others. with mary, he had looked at the past and future of their relationship, and at their joint emotional struggles on their sons death in 1862. with colfax he was examining the past and future of his relationship with the american people. on april 4, he had walked with tad and a small protective force of sailors armed with carbines, accompanied by thousands of black slaves and hundreds of white union soldiers and perhaps a few white southerners of a lower classes read 10 days later, he was admitting to colfax that he had indeed courted danger there. but he wasn't accepting any responsibility for putting himself or his sun in jeopardy. he appears to have thought that he was just plain different from

other folks. incapable of registering an objective moral threat that others could readily perceive. a threat that he would have readily perceived if it had involve some other national leader. with mary, lincoln was promising to try and act differently in the future. with colfax, he promised no such thing. he was saying in effect that he had long ago decided to rub shoulders with ordinary people at every opportunity. as a social creature, that was as natural inclination. it was a decision he made consciously, too. he wanted to continue affirming why his body as well as his words that this was a republic a body politic in which there was no separation between the leaders in the lead -- leaders and the led. in monarchy, leaders held