number of youtube videos recently about how to remove your personal protective equipment after exposure to ebola patients, which are to be frank, dangerously incorrect and misleading.é@ and obviously availability and having the necessary equipment as i led into that is essential that first responders have adequate amounts of necessary equipment to respond to these types of attacks. the international association of fire chiefs recommends the local fire departments will able to stabilize situation for at least 72 hours before federal assistance arrives. one concern from recent events is we found there were 6 to 8 week back order of the personal ko protective equipment necessary for ebola responses. in terms of preparedness for a lpmy

chemical or biological attack, a few recommendations for ensuring effectiveness would be, one, that the federal government must provide accurate and timely thread information to local ?; first responders. 3ó?jr"ering the multitude of potential threats and certainly we still see budgetary constraints of local government, local first responders need to know which threats they should prepare for. if groups are promoting violent extremism and publishing training materials on the internet or social media, the federal government should provide information about tactics and techniques which are being taught, again, in order for local entities and agencies to be prepared. the local joint terrorism task forces are working to build strong relationships with local law enforcement to help local fire and emergency medical service departments to obtain this information. >> chief, i'll tell you what. i know you have lengthy

testimony. i'd like you to submit it as part of the record here and we'd be pleased to review it. i think your colleagues have significant statements to review as well. we'd like those submitted as part of the record. and if you would be kind enough to conclude, chief, if there is anything you want to conditionally to add. this is a very important panel and i'd like to give everyone opportunity to really interact with you. >> i'll just wrap up by saying, you know, it is very important for federal, state and local agencies to plan, exercise for potential incidents using chemical or biological agents. the private sector obviously has a big role to play in that as well, as working with the same -- with the governmental and agencies both at a local state, and federal level., state, and federal level. and continued training obviously is vital component. the equipment again, some local agencies are very reliant on grant programs that exist out there right now to provide them

with that necessary equipment and training. so again just can't stress enough the collaboration that needs to take place from all levels of government from the local level on up through the federal to be prepared for these types of incidents. and once again thank you for allowing me to be here this morning. i'd be glad to answer any questions. >> grateful for your participation. stay tuned. we'll come back at you. i got a couple of questions along with my colleagues. doctor? >> i'm matt minson. texas a&m university, i also have a private sector practice occupational environmental medicine. that may be germane to some of the comments i'll have. i'm going to speak more specifically to the healthcare system vulnerabilities and issues maybe associated with it.

first i'll say in most of these settings the first request is actually an advocacy for additional funding. i'm going to focus away from that although they can use the resources. also absent adequate and appropriate have strategies for those resources i think it is very important we look at some of the issues taking place organically in the health care system and how that might affect what we do with those strategies. and so on that point i'm going to actually give a quick address to issues we know. health care systems are in general in competition. they are businesses. and we expect them to somehow uniformly and seamlessly integrate during an adverse event. this will be especially arduous when talking about things like infectious disease or bio defense issues. coalescence of healthcare systems, it is important to understand they came to be. they are corporations generally

speaking. and in that capacity, they grow like that by having great practices and growing or by acquisition. in which case by a distressed asset or company that is vulnerable to assimilating their procedures and policies or they actually acquire a successful entity that's doing things well and thus maybe somewhat resistant to taking on new policies. in any case, we often see those situations allow for some integration but in con gruns between platforms of things like software and the like. those become vulnerabilities when we talk about an event like a biodisaster. and i think that is important to understand. so when we say why did it the electronic medical record transition or why didn't this happen? that may be why. and we need to look at that in advance. inventory that resources the hospitals has gone to a just in time platform.

this is good for business and not so good for disaster sometimes. there have been many government programs that have tried to address this with regard to resources of the strategic stockpiles and things of that nature. but that is still an area and chief illustrated that with the ppe issue. that there are still gaps and vulnerabilities we need to think about when we talk about these things. i want to talk about the human resource issue associated with the healthcare. that's very important as well. one major breakdown is human error or human issue and it is to be understood and anticipated sometimes. but understanding the way that healthcare workers are going to integrate in the system now and ! adw ñ ap v(yn one can think as recently as 10 to 15 years ago that the relationship that a physician might have had with a health care system was they were independent contractor. build insurance or the patient

or something like that. and they were an advocate for the patient but then they they had a different leverages system with the healthcare system. nurses traditionally were employees of the healthcare system. that's inverted now actually. we're seeing in many cases nurses are actually part of a group that actually practice and works on an agency basis. physicians more and more we're seeing out of the bureau of labor statistics analysis where their anticipation is really 75% of physicians may well be employees. that changes both the concept and compensation reward mechanisms associated with these groups. this is important. an economic organic reality that needs to be understood when we talk about the preparedness issues. similarly -- [ cell phone ringing ] -- i like the background music. that's perfectly fine. like the issue with ebola. in canvassing with the nursing population and when nurses are involved, this stood out. when asked nurses for the familiarity or the having read the disaster or contingency plan for the hospital, 8% acknowledged that they had.

that is a disturbing number. that number was purported in the media. whether that is accurate or not. i think it was an informal survey. but it belies on issue there. i've been trained and have been taught almost to punitive extreme i'm not supposed to bring problems to the table without offering solutions. so i'm going to try to do that now. i think what we really need to do with the human resource issue is think about in terms of the training associational and strategies with regard to personnel. the way to do that, i believe -- and there's been a lot of support and discussion about this -- is to actually look at this in terms of the old military construct of other duties as assigned or battle stations. so if you are on the ship and you peel potatoes, you also have a battle station during a bad time. the health care cohort might well be served by that.

there are state certifying agencies that actually allow these people to have the credentials necessary to go out and do the job they are going to do. there are state boards of medical examiners or state medical boards and there are nursing boards similarly. where those are different, if you will, from the organizations of board certifications that we're talking about the licensure issues, and that is instrumental to being function. they are excellent mechanisms. in many states there's been analyses, university of maryland did one of 62 jurisdictions with regard of the nurse practitioners provisions in their statutes. and it was very interesting to look at that because there are dissimilarities, but there are a great number of similarities. and a compulsion, if you will in terms of the cmes if you will, might be valuable. and it hasn't been fully explored.

similarly with physicians, we're seeing more and more specific cmes called out. such as ethics. this may also be a piece to be taken on. and that would also engage the community to advise and you would get a better return on effort in that case. i'd mentioned the boards. i'd also offer for hospitals and the healthcare systems proper there has been a great deal of discussion how we would engage. healthcare coalition how they should be undertaken. l01uráu(port that. they are large, monstrous animals in terms of what they entail. many different equities, many different types of supervisory entities. it is valuable. the most successful mechanism and also the broadest one i think. so it is going to have a unique challenges. for hospitals and healthcare entities. we saw during ebola and we see

under steady state consideration with a variety of types of the pathology, trauma, burn, heart attacks or cardiac care, and strokes. we've seen there are stratifications within healthcare systems of different hospitals being a level this versus a level that and how patients are transferred or handled. it doesn't make sense that we would depart from that for something like bio defense or an issue like this and ebola illustrated and supported that. we ended up ultimately with centers for care with understanding that hospitals would feed the patients to them if someone present, if you will, to to the emergency department. i think this is an area why things like the joint commission would be valuable. they have already undertaken this with specific types of the healthcare considerations or specialties. and so i think that that would be a great area for additional consideration to take place. the joint commission is wonderful in the way they execute this. i think that they could be of invaluable service in helping to

bolster both the insensible and sensible aspects of the healthcare system. so i'm out of breath and i think i've exhausted attention. i'm going to yield the floor my colleague at the point. >> thank you. >> good morning and thank you for the opportunity to address the panel. i'd like to focus my remarks by using the example of one of the more difficult scenarios, a wide area anthrax release. this illustrates many of the challenges we face and prepare for in responding the bio threats. the wide area anthrax release scenario proposes complexities generally not seen. clearly definable areas would not be known and may be spread over a large area. because contamination levels cannot be known with precision, it follows everyone across a broad area would be assumed to be as risk. and as a result emergency responders would require immediate antimicrobial post

exposure prophylaxis. in the context i'd like to highlight key issues for consideration. first, all though we tend to focus on public health and medical consequences of large-scale biological attack, it would be much more than that public health emergency. it would be a national security crisis. by definition this would not be a naturally occurring disease outbreak. and not behaving as such. this would be the work of a thinking, plotting and reacting enemy and that enemy could from cure multiple bio agents engineer it to be resistant to our countermeasures and even use other measures to attack other places. and due to the delay of the potentially more than 24 hours to recognize a convert attack with our current bio detection capabilities, consider the domestic and international

travel into and out of our major u.s. cities in that time period, that 24 hour period from the s7 moment of attack to the moment of recognition of an attack. by the time an attack is recognized, individuals who might have been exposed to anthrax could be scattered across the country, in fact scattered across the globe. moreover an attack anywhere would heighten concerns for major metro areas everywhere dur to consent of the reload and secondary attacks. so it could be international in s7 scope by the time it is even recognized. second the immediate response of countermeasures in opening hours is the critical to prevent catastrophic loss of life. the challenges associated with the completed this time sensitive task are significant. in the event of the anthrax attack oral antibiotics would be needed within 48 hours of exposure. because there is inherent delay in detection system responders would have far less time to complete the task. third there is little that can be done after this initial period to make up or recover from a failure provide post exposure prophylaxis.

the response including the federal government's assistance must be immediate and cannot fail. that is why the preparedness and response efforts have been so ko front-loaded focusing really on opening moves of this immediate my mission, the rapid dispensing of the countermeasure. the challenge the government faces is how to assist cities within this narrow time window. and if response is not fast enough lives hang in the balance. there in lies the most pressing promise we face. an all of nation response, immediate access to life-saving

medications and vaccines, and the maintenance of public safety and security without which the distribution and dispensing of medications would be impossible. given these challenges, the usual expectation that the local jurisdiction is on its own for the first 48 hours during a disaster does not apply to the scenario of a bio attack. immediate challenges have been described as the four ds. to simplify the challenge we face. detect, decide, distribute and dispense. improving speed of the detection and confirmation of attack, informing an acceleration of decision making in a setting that would likely been kootive or confusing and critical to moment a timely response to minimize loss of life. this all presumes we have the capability to detect an attack. we have the bio detection and bio surveillance capability and the means to motivate an immediate response and dispense with distribution of the countermeasures. and three, we have the adequate

supplies of the effective countermeasures to dispense in the first place. i'm focus on the third and fourth ds. in terms of the second d, decide or decision making. the federal government has protocols for coordinating an all of government response to other rapidly evolving threats such as maritime and aviation threats. in 2011 the federal government for responding to bio threats. the biological assessment and threat response or batter. the purpose of this was to ready the entire federal government to respond to a major bio threat by enhancing and accelerating bio situational awareness and decision making. and directing all resources of the federal government to support an immediate response. it is important that a my batter-like process, i understand that the acronym has changed over time is regularly exercised and especially important that the triggers for

activating that process include scenarios where uncertainty, ak big youty, and indecision might delay recognition of and response to a bio threat. the last two ds, distribute and dispense are among the most daunting.q we face the time-distance challenge that is bounded by the physics of reality. how quickly can we mobilize and distribute and suspense antibiotics to millions of the americans. how can we mobilize federal personnel and assets in time to assist with maintaining public safety and security as well as with assists with the countermeasure distribution and dispensing. i'll quickly mention just one strategy. one strategy for mobilizing q8 federal personnel assets and time is to make a difference is to leverage the personnel and assets already in place working in or near the impacted city. one federal agency with expertise in distribution is the postal service. they are the second largest federal agency in the federal government with approximately 600,000 employees. nearly 1 out of every 4 federal employees work with for the u.s. postal service.

and they are present in all communities across the united states. six days each week they have the capability of the reaching every household and business in the united states in an eight-hour period. the potential advantages of leveraging the postal service capabilities to deliver antibiotics are readily apparent. flshz in 2009 president signed executive order 13527 for establishing the means. postal model was singled out and mentioned first in the executive order. postal service and five other federal agencies account for nearly three-fourths of the civilian federal work force and encompass the key capabilities that would be needed including security and public safety and public health and medical care. work still needs to be done to integrate local or organic federal capabilities into the local response plans mobilizing

even these local federal assets will take time during an event to minimize delays potential responders, federal or otherwise will want to have immediate access to the medical countermeasures for themselves and their families. the executive order called for a mechanism for the provision of countermeasures to ensure mission essential functions of federal department agencies could continue. this is a key component of the postal model and could be achieved for other responders for workplace pods or the issuance of a home method. this all underscores the importance of reducing time and distributing and dispensing countermeasures. it also highlights need to be flexible and prepared for surprise because the incident and response may not unfold as expected. and given how difficult it is to quantify the risk of bio attack and priority preparedness investments in the face of the many competing priorities facing federal, state and local governments as well as budget realities, we must look for most efficient, cost effective and

sustainable strategies that will protect americans. thank you again for this opportunity. >> thank you. thank you both very very much. let me just -- let me start if i could. chief, one of the areas that emergency responders have i think, depending on the state, have built mutual aid capabilities, where you don't necessarily build up the capability within every fire station or every community to respond to every conceivable challenge. but within that region. and you talked about regionalization and so dr. mecher, you talked about that. i'm very interested in pursuing that concept. and you take a look at the resources and jurisdictions of the chief, how effective is the mutual aid concept in terms of gaining support national to

respond to the variety of challenges, either the physical attack of terrorism a biological attack, a chemical attack? because we all know everybody likes to have all the equipment, all the tools, all the accoutrements they need so they can be specialists. how embracing is the broader community in accepting the fact they can't have it all but they better regionalize their ability to respond and recover? >> i think one of the areas is the initiative program. that is the best example of what you just mentioned, that we have looked at things on a regional basis. instead of just, you know, individual communities, cities, municipalities. so these areas you have been identified as those areas you do see that. you see a collaboration and you do see that consolidation of resources. so you look across the region. you see what the vulnerabilities

are. it is a threat-based type of system. and again those resources are staged in certain areas or within certain agencies. within that region. and again, if there is an incident, they are all brought to bare in a collective manner. beyond that you mention the mutual aid. that's something that's obviously been a big part of the fire service community throughout the towns, cities and so forth would pool the resources in times. in oklahoma, we're not strangers to natural disasters. it is a big part of our response and knowing who our mutual aid partners are and we exercise those things on a regular basis. and, again, we had a lot of experience in dealing with that. i see that as a fire chief as something that has improved over time. some of the programs that the federal government post 9/11 established, particularly the

uase program has been very instrumental in bringing -- in pooling those resources so you don't have to have each community equipped with the exact same things, but the resources are there in a region and we know where they are and we know how to pool those when necessary. >> dr. mecher, to your point, you talked about centers for ebola care, which again is very similar to mutual aid kind of idea. you do create a center of excellence. is there a compelling authority. what is the initiative needed for the broader health care community which as you pointed out is very very competitive very competitive so that individual hospitals and health care delivery systems will give up to a certain extent, surrender their autonomy to a particular hospital or health care system to develop that level of expertise, because often that means there will be

funding going to that center of expertise, which every hospital ceo would like to have in his or her jurisdiction. who decided these would be the centers for ebola care. >> i prefer the carrot to the stick in a situation like that. i think compulsion of behavior will be less effective. i mentioned the way we do the straight stratification under joint commission considerations. there are advantages. there is marketplace competitive edge. there is sometimes deeming mechanisms that help with things like medicare presentation. it enhances the competence in the community that you have a hospital or health care facility capable of rendering a certain amount of care. i think those are the elements that will help. i think eventually if there was

priorities or a funding stream or cooperative agreement that there was a designation that facilities that demonstrated they had a certain type of capability would obviously have an advantage to some of those funding initiatives and that would be an inducement. i think it would be useful. not every hospital will be able to do the same thing and that is just reasonable and that is to be expected. as i said, we recognized a lot of different pathologies and disease processes. stroke is the most popular example where they have the joint commission where they have descriptors for a stroke center. these are -- they require both some equipment, some training, some exercising, all of the things that one would want with a bio defense initiative, they have that for stroke capability. i think the templates are out there. i think the mechanisms that make

those things successful in a steady state are the same mechanisms we want to follow if we were to design this for a biodefense initiative. i won't delve into -- i could be here all day talking about the particulars of it. i think there are some pieces to that that we would want to exploit if we wanted this to be successful, if that makes sense. i also offer for classification and to help illustrate this, my background previously was as a local preparedness director, a state preparedness director, and a strategic medical officer. health and human services. and in that portfolio was counter measures, first responder protection issues, and the national health security strategy. i think that the cooperative agreements that we see for public health agreements and preparedness funding as well. i think the patterns are there. i think they are successful. i think i don't want to point out where i think vulnerabilities might be, but i

think one thing that comes to mind for me is urban search and rescue. not everybody is able to do that. we have regional collectives called into play by states or by the federal government. another illustration of what i think might work. >> chief, 20 years ago oklahoma city had a terrible tragedy, the bombing of the federal office building. what have you learned since then and what kind of -- if that had a bio terrorism aspect to it and you didn't know at the time what it was, what is the difference between the training of your people now, and what happened 20 years ago? >> i think any time you have an event like that, and again, not only the bombing as i pointed out, we have very regular

natural disasters. you learn lessons from those and what works well and what don't. i would say before there was the national management system, that was a nims event because of the agencies involved being a federal building, obviously. so as the doctor mentioned, that was our first experience using the urban search and rescue teams sponsored by fema throughout the country. there was 13 that deployed during that event. we recognized in oklahoma city that we weren't as skilled and as equipped in urban search and rescue as far as building collapse and the technical rescue components that we needed it to be.

and that certainly, since then, and since we developed our own program in oklahoma city, that we collectively work with tulsa, the tulsa metro area for urban search and rescue in the state that we have become more proficient in that in some of ensuing natural disasters that we had to respond to over time. i think with every event there is lessons learned and lessons to be shared. had the oklahoma city bombing had a bio, i think -- i'm a little scared to think about it at that time because just as i mentioned, in terms of technical rescue, i don't know that we would have been as prepared for such a component as a bio agent. >> if i remember correctly you brought the fema people in, i lost a lot of employees at hhs at the time. >> yes, ma'am. dr. -- is it mecher. >> i'm dr. minson. >> almost every hospital in this country has to deal with

infectious diseases. if we're talking about certain centers, we're talking about highly infectious diseases like ebola. we can't afford a health system in which we don't have a reporting system to state health departments and to the cdc so we can follow patterns. this country is dealing with infectious diseases every day. can you talk about that infrastructure? i want to be careful we're not thinking that all infectious diseases go to these small numbers of centers because we're really -- we're dealing with this every day, without knowing whether it is a bioterrorism outbreak but with a system that looks at patterns. >> thank you, to elaborate on that, i think you're setting it up absolutely correctly. what we're not suggesting in this discussion is that anything different would be created.

simply what we're saying is sort of what happened during the ebola response in this country is that we had facilities with expertise, material, equipment, and frankly the where with all to take care of the disease as it went through the arch of the disease. with the expectation that any hospital should be able to recognize it, report it, do -9 stabilization procedures, control it, and if it was something that had specialization requirements, that might be referred on to a center of sclengsexcellence or a center of specialization or however you want to describe it. i don't want to use a trauma analogy, but i'm going to you. the truth is, most hospitals in the united states, you can't control who comes through the door. we have laws that prevent that and rightly so. if a individual was to present

with a certain type of traumatic problem that the hospital didn't have a surgeon or the anesthesiology support or critical care support that individual, because of _5ji9qmet relationships that are already established would be able to transfer that individual after some -- >> after they stabilized him. >> yes ma'am, absolutely. and that works. that works very well. and that is really what i'm saying. we should not create something they still have the same requirements for reporting the trama statistics and everything. it's the same thing, but looking at it in termsxd of biodefense and some of the more esoteric type responses. >> i want to ask a question about the post office department. i'm a big fan of the post office department.lp the last time i remember them implementing anything it was medicare. i don't remember them having refrigerators. other than to keep their lunches in. wouldn't we be better off using the pharmacy network in the

united states for the distribution of vaccines or anything else?r it seems to me we have a system, it is private sector, but it is pretty well organized. and i think if i wanted to get some things out fast bringing in the pallets, if i remember, ther and u.p.s., i would give them to a existing network of pharmacies. and i assume that was looked at as well. there is more pharmacies than post offices these days. i would think that we would use an existing system with a e1b. control mechanism rather than rebuilding one for a distribution system. >> i agree, i think we want to use any and all capabilities for counter measures. there may be particular

scenarios where that may be more attractive, for example, a tll5ú95%1:á ou want -- perhaps you want to distribute antiviral medications. very quickly. that is not a attack scenario. and you would leverage your pharmacies to distribute those medications. if we're talking about a bio attack one of the challenges you have when you look at distribution points is maintaining security and all the challenges. and it is slightly different. in terms of distributing counter measures, if you think about what order of magnitude challenge you have, if you need to distribute to 5 million people in a 24-hour period, you try count to a million. takes you about 12 days. one million seconds is 12 days. 5 million seconds equals two months. that's how big five million is. you could have multiple channels to distribute to, but it underscores the challenge you face in a very short period of time.

to very rapidly distribute counter measures to a population where you don't know what is happening next. this is not a naturally occurring disease. i flew into washington on 9/11, about 8:15 in the morning came into reagan, and what struck me about 9/11 is the uncertainty of what was going to happen next. and during that initial 12 hour period, it was very uncertain. i would put myself in the setting of a bio attack. you're in the midst of that event very early on and not knowing what is coming next. and what other secondary attacks might there be. i would think security would be a critical issue. so the challenge is being able to balance those distribution points and maintaining safety and security for the public.

>> thank you, thank you for your remarks, gentleman. great to see you again. chief, i would like to direct this to you. i noted your comments about the amount of intelligence briefing you receive from the federal government. you and others from the first responder community. that's been a challenge. concerned about getting generally classified information out to first responders so you can make use of it. and particularly critical for you so that you can -- it can inform how you're going to prepare for the attack. it looks like it is more like chemical threat, pair it one way, a bio threat another way. so that is critical if that happens. i know with the local police, they have more regularized intelligence briefing process and partly because of the infrastructure that is going out

and doing the investigating on the front end. from the perspective of someone on the nonpolice community, are you getting the intelligence briefing you think you need about what our adversaries are looking at so you can sort of position yourself and be poised and respond to what is the threat of the day rather than what you got the year before? >> i think it is both, sir. in some places that happens in a better way and more often than in other places to be very frank. i think a lot of it again, depends on the area that you're in. again, as i mentioned, if there is a joint terrorism task force in your area, you know the nonlaw enforcement first responder community may be more or less involved in that. if you have a fusion center that gathers and disseminates intelligence information.

in my case, one of my deputy chief is briefed regularly. i think there are gaps in other places where you don't have a good relationship, there may not have been a relationship establish the between the fire service, the medical service and the law enforcement agencies that they don't get as regular and as in depth briefings as they should. there is work to be done there. overall we seem some improvement. i this it is incumbent on us to keep pushing in that regard to make sure we get the information that we need and sometimes that's what it takes. so it boils down to a communication and trust issue. in some cases in terms of the federal government, those federal agencies, that collect and disseminate evidence, there is security issues that come into play.

i don't know we need to know the detailed information on my side of the fence but we at least know there say threat out there, the potential of that threat, a credibility of that threat, so that we can be prepared. overall, i see some improvement in that regard, but still some work to be done. >> not surprised at all that maybe it is uneven around the country, based on relationships, based on the tradition that you have in a particular center. looks like you're well positioned as chairman of the national associations. to pulse your colleagues to find out where the weaknesses and strengths are and push for it and let us know because that intelligence process and making sure that intelligence gets out to you all who can prepare for it, that's part of our view. so any input you have on that would be helpful. thank you.

>> we had several others talk about the need to know basis and the need to share basis. we just need you and the chiefs and others to keep pushing and developing that need to share culture and relying simply on relationships is a good start but not the finish line that we want to see develop. in is to be integration between the federal state and local level. we appreciate your candidness on that. questions, go ahead. >> first i would like to endorse the secretary's comment about using private sector for distribution. i think it is a very good idea. there have been some companies with distribution networks that talked about it and received some resistance within hhs. and i think it is something we should look at. for dr. mecher, you're one of the few that was on the homeland security council, can you talk about whether that led to the

diminishment of capabilities, was it a seamless transition to homeland security and the national staff and how you see the homeland security function in the white house fitting in the four d's that you discussed. >> when it was the homeland security council under president bush i served with the biodirector during his tenure at hsc. so i had the opportunity to see a senior director in place who had primary responsibilities for dealing with biodefense. there was an identified individual with primary responsibility to lead the bio defense effort. following the transition and the reorganization of homeland security council into the national security staff, that off was subsumed into a director of resiliency.

that senior director position was removed. all of those portfolios associated with those individuals under bio defense really moved under resiliency. if you recall, very early in the administration we were hit with h1n1. the work i was involved in and others was pandemic preparedness and pandemic planning, and so when h1n1 began in late april of 2009, it was early and several months into the administration. so we did not have a senior director in biodefense. what was organized was a response of leadership in the office of resiliency to lead the effort for h1n1, a major bio effort. a number of us were really involved.

what i did see was the difference between having a leadership that was identifiable for defense, and not having a single individual that you could identify as bio defense. i think there is some advantages, i saw them in the past administration of that individual and leading the effort which bob certainly did. >> are you saying we should return to the days of having a dedicated homeland security council? >> i was talking about having the advantages of having someone identifiable, a senior individual, to lead the effort in bio defense, i think it could certainly be lead from the national security staff. it still was -- homeland efforts were identified in the national security staff. what was missing was an identified senior official for defense. >> i would like to ask about the

respective community responses to the ebola outbreak over the last six months or so. we have relatively few proxies. big distinctions between ebola and the kinds of things that carter was discussing but do you think we did better or worse than you would have anticipated? is there anything that surprised you that we could think about in terms of preparing for biological threats? >> who wants to go first? >> this speaks to the coordination problem. >> so i'll speak to -- i'll give an anecdote from the corporate sector. we're a multinational. we have people in western africa at the time who are performing things for infrastructure support. we worked with government partners, we initiated a quick

communication campaign. we looked at how we would move someone if we had someone that was ill. it is a private concern, it was between the private sector and a individual coming back for care. i think it was reasonable to say across the board that what we saw was mixed result and that is fair. i think that what, if i was going to say anything that i would look at in terms of changing, because i think that was your -- the root of your question, the root of a system and referral of a individual to the proper facility that can take care of them very rapidly. i think we're in better condition to do that now. we made some mistakes and have done some things well. what i would like to see is rather than do this every single

time disease specific is i would like to start to do this with the idea of infectious disease or bio defense. rather than have to wait to go through the peculiarities or each of the different agents. i think that is the safest and smartest way to do this. that may not be in place right now, and i think that is something that we can start to attend. that is my thought. >> two comments, one was on communication on being able to convey the risk and the reaction to a highly infectious disease communicated itself. we saw a spike in fear. the challenge i saw was to be able to first conceptualize what that risk truly is and in terms of trying to quantify that risk. but risk is always viewed through a lens of other -- as sam and vince like to talk about, the outrage factors that the public views that risk

within. so i think the risk communication is always a challenge in any kind of an event. to get to the issue that i think matt was mentioning, i think we focused on where to create these individuals and what was needed was the assessment capability. does everybody need the ability to treat a patient, or the $x capability to recognize it, recognize simple things they can do to protect themselves and other staff and patients and get that person to a specific center rather than setting up centers everywhere to take care of these patients. that i saw was that there was a attention between developing this capable versus focusing the capability in a small number of

centers and expanding the capability like the infectious disease. you have that capability everywhere, but you have them a concentrated capability to manage the high consequence infectious diseases. so i think between assessment and where we would provide that treatment and a setting to protect our staff. the other thing i think we came to realize is that they're most infectious when they're critically ill. we put these patients in intensive care units, which we staff with very intenseive in terms of personnel. in terms of controlling a disease outbreak, we're almost doing the opposite thing. we're exposing potentially large numbers of people to a highly lethal and infectious disease when those patients are probably the most infectious and have the highest viral lobes.

i think what it brought was thinking about icu medicine and icu care. it has lots of people and when you think about ebola you're almost going in the opposite direction. you're trying to constrain the number of people with contact, limit the staff having contact with the patient. it is almost opposite of what we normally do in critical care medicine. >> that's why isolating the space is important. >> jerry parker next.v >> just a question for carter and perhaps matt, and it is similar, but your testimony really highlighted the need, we talked about how novel the bio threat is, and low probability and high consequences, and it demands novel approaches. and it requires people thinking outside of their box and outside

of their comfort zone, and it requires cultural change. and the postal model, home stockpiles, and the private zv sector is -- needs to be incorporated in this in novel approaches, but it is really speaking to leadership. it comes back to leadership, and it is also maybe not, in addition to the white house leadership, but you know having the secretary and deputy secretaries also engaged on this is very, very important as well. and that leadership, you already told us that you believe having bob catalic and that leadership in the white house is important. since you were in the eye of the hurricane, so to speak, in the xd white house, in addition to just having that position, whether attributes nfu"*q ttached to that position to be most effective.

>> there is a consensus here we like to have, we can't do that. we know at various sx ñ be truly coordinated. absent of that we're looking forñr0lç alternatives. >> one of the things that the\ leadership provides is -- i had the good fortune, the opportunity to watch a transition in administrations and see what happens as administrations change. i was able able to see h1n1 and deep water horizon, the haiti earthquakes and fukushima and got to see firsthand what it feels like when a disaster unfolds. and you watch it stutter and unfold. while it was unfolding, we would have conversations, some of us in bio defense and say it is 24

hours after something that could have been a bio event, do you think we could have done it in 24 hours? and then we look at the information that we had at the moment of the event, and you watch how the information changed and you saw how most of the time the initial information was not correct, and you're evolveing over time. so you're dealing with this evolving situation on uncertainty and ambiguity and you still need to act. i think the importance of leadership is in that type of environment where the information will never be complete, it is going to be inexact, it will be a lot of ambiguity, you'll be looking through the fog, you're going to need to be able to give advice or someone will need to be able to give advice to leadership in terms of options of actions.

and that needs to be as informed as it can be. i think having someone that has been been in bio defense for a long time, offering that kind of a kind of advice is important. >> is there anything they need for budgetary authority too? >> it is hard to get things done without the ability to control dollars. i think having influence in some way of being able to move resources, if you can identify an issue but you can't swing resources to assist, it will probably not get done. >> can you say anything about what you observed at the department level that might be helpful? >> so i want to touch on anthrax. and countermeasure delivery.

there are two theater takesing place alt place at the time of an anthrax attack, and that's when we talk about the postal hhs. there was patient care individuals that care about the disease. that is difficult in the hospital base. there is another concept that is classically for medicine, the idea that there may have been an exposure and you want to prevent the disease manifestation. by doing so, you eliminate a lot of morbidity and mortality. what i saw at the department level with this is i think when we talk about health care coalitions. they're actually communities. you're talking about everybody that supporting the health care system so it is a faith based initiative, and folks that do logistic requirements and all of that enterprise. that is a big animal, i think you want to bring as many of those support capabilities to

the table. carter mentioned i want to point out that that was not something that was federally driven, it was identified by a local jurisdiction that this was part of, not in lieu of, using pharmacies, more points of dispensing, or any other initiatives, it was in adjunct to them. and the thought was that perhaps there would be a population because of mobility issues, traffic arteries, or something, they might want this delivery to instead of a pull out and go to a location. and the jurisdiction, i won't speak for them, but they were successful and they thought they had a very good working model and i agree. it looked pretty good. dr. parker mentioned the idea of culture change.

this is what we're talking about. when i talked about the idea of bringing in a training requirement, or some sort of credentialing element necessary with these boards to provide that nugget, if you will. of biodefense as part of the other duty as assigned. we're talking about a 21st century health construct in the health care community. it's not a bad idea. as with all things, the particulars will be the success or the undoing. so from a state and local department standpoint, i think what you have to do is allow enough latitude for a local to make tactical decisions that will work and chief, you probably support me on this. i think states then become sort of the funneling capability, it's easier for the funds, initiatives, and i think at the

federal level it's important to allow that latitude for the execution of those duties because they're so effective. because this is a very diverse country in terms of resources. and i think keeping that in mind will probably help with that culture. >> how constraining is the practice rules of a state. what you're suggesting works as long as there are not a narrow scope of practice rules for what health professionals can do. >> so i would distinguish what we're talking about with scope of practice, so for informations tion physicians or individuals who have autonomy of practice there is generally a great deal of latitude. they're determined in the civil courts, and criminal behavior, evaluation by their board. states set those limits and what

i mentioned, the study done at the university of maryland, they were very, very different depending on where you were. so when i talk about practice, there was practitioners that function in much the same way, but have a supervisor agreem or arrangement. that is changing to some degree in the united states. it is hard to answer that question in totality. you then get into vocation and technical trainings. that requires symptom driving supervision. so the answer is how do you do that?o,#hbeá ráhv 'm going back to the boards.

if that is a piece of the requires cme's for the license to renew, or to have it as part of the curriculum, that might be the best way to do it. >> if you look at what is happening in health care there is less and less independent practitioners. there is less acas or acos or they're employed. >> that's quite true. that said, even if they're employed, they can't do what they do unless they have their licensure. so i'm saying rather than making it part of a social organization, or a guild, or something of that nature, i think that the licensing board that allows themselves to have that employment and process is the most effective way to do it although there are many. >> you have been very helpful and provocative. we could keep you there for the next couple of hours but we're going to move on to the second panel. as they come forward we thank you for your participation and your contribution today. thank you.

we now take you live to appomattox court house national historical park in virginia, the site where 150 years ago on this day confederate general robert e. lee surrendered his army to ulysses s. grant. a ceremony today marking the exact time that grant and lee met at the mclean house to discuss terms of surland errender. >> -- each of you here today on this historic day in our nation's heftry. this courthouse village stands not just as a symbol of war's end, but as a point of departure for a transformed nation. the significance of what took place in mr. mclean's parlor settled the issue of who would

be the victors of the american civil war but many questions remained unanswered. soldiers echoed their thoughts in letters and diary entries. while letters of union soldiers reflected jubilation, their words also reflected concerns. in the front lines of appomattox chaplain jl mulligan of the 140 pennsylvania wrote a few days later, though the army of northern virginia is ours, still grave questions remain to be settled, for which god alone can give the true wisdom and guidance. a confederate are atillerist had an entry on april 11th that lee had surrendered his whole army.

surely the last 24 hours has been a day of the most intense mental anxiety i have ever experienced. thousands of thoughts have passed through my mind as to what fate awaits my country my family my neighbors, my friends, and myself. and several months earlier morgan w. carter, with the 28th united states colored troops expressed his concerns in a letter home. you know yourself that we have been trampled under the white man's heel for years now, and we have a choice to elevate ourselves and our race and what little i can do toward it i will do so most willingly. if i should die before i receive the benefit of it, i will have the consolation of knowing that the generations to come will receive the blessing of it and i

think if the duty of all men of our race to do what they can. the diaries and letters of these soldiers reflect uncertainty, but also hope. hope is our essential path as a nation and it is central to the story of appomattox. when lee -- when grant offered the confederate soldiers could carry home their horses, their baggage and their side arms, he fueled hope. when lee declared that his army would not scatter to the country side to fight a guerrilla war, he abided the hope of lincoln grant, and tens of thousands of union soldiers that the conflict would end quickly and with ceremony rather than slowly and with destruction. for slaves, appomattox represented the realization of

dreams of freedom and fueled new hopes that the path forward would bring them justice and equality. as we gather here on this momentous day, as we reflect on this immense event that played out in this simple virginiat village, let us take hope from the events we recall and strength from the people who lived upon and walked upon this ground 150 years ago. but let us remember too that the hope of a moment often requires the efforts of generations to realize and that way we remain active participants in our nation's efforts to realize the hopes and aspirations born of appomattox 150 years ago today. at this time i would like to introduce to you patrick

a.mendonka, senior director office of the post master 6z general, a career postal employee, we are very happy to have patrick join us today for the commemoration events. [ applause ] >> good afternoon. thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, robin for the kind introduction. i would like to first thank the national park service and the u.s. postal service for this fine preparation for this event today and recognize a couple of my colleagues here today from the district the district manage, district office, wendy english, william acres, darryl see, ed chabin post master roanoke and post master from appomattox, linda lawthorn. thank you for being here.

i am tremendously honored to be here representing the u.s. postal service as we dedicate the final two stamps of our five-year civilñi war essentialcentennial series. it is humbling to be at the site where 150 years ago today general robert e. lee surrendered the army of northern virginia to general ulysses s. grant ending the bloodiest war americans have ever known. the setting is very fitting because today we come full circle with our civil war stamp series. four years ago, we began the series with our fort sumptner and first battle of bull run stamps. the wars engulfedym the farm of mclean whose home was commandeered by general beauregard as his headquarters. union aermz,you till artillery shells

struck his farm. here his family lived peacefully until april 8th, 1865, when charles marshall an aid for general lee, asked mr. mclean to show him a place that was suitable for robert e. lee and another general to meet. when his first suggestion was rejected, mr. mclean offered up his own residence for the meeting and the rest is history. mr. mclean and colonel marshall most likely would not have happened if not for a battle that took place about 80 miles to the east in dunwoody county virginia, the battle of five forks. this was a decisive clash that forced confederates to abandon their capital and ultimately led to the surrender of the army of northern virginia. today, the united states postal

service is pleased and proud to conclude its series bya5 issuing two new stamps, one thatíu depicts the battle of five forks and one that depicts robert e. lee's sur rend surrender to ulysses s. grant. using thee inging the images of these events, we have the stamps we have today. the battle of five forks stamps features a preproduction of a painting by a french artist who is best known for creating the 360 degree battle of gettysburg cyclerama that went on display 1983 and can be seen at the gettysburg national military park. the appomattox court house stamp is a reproduction of a 1985 painting, peace in the union by thomas nas the political cartoonist who popularized the donkey as the symbol of the democratic party and the elephant to represent the

republican party. in these images we see the story of america and remarkably all this has done on the size of a postage stamp. from this day forward, this image of the these historic events will be carried on letters and packages to millions of households and businesses throughout the united states. on a personal note i would experience and i finally remembered the centennial of the civil war. i believe it was my first t-shirt that had something on it. it demonstrated to me how exciting the history of our nation is and how much there is to learn from it. in terms of learning my daughter went to gettysburg college, my wife and son went to shepherd university situated between sharpsburg and harpers ferry, so the civil war has always been very close to my family and myself. so in closing, let me state that in issuing these new stamps the united states postal service has been proud to participate in a valuable effort to commemorate and reflect anew on a critical area of our nation's history.

so now on behalf of the united states postal service i would like to ask robin and dennis to come up on the stage and help us unveil the stamp. [ applause ] >> one, two, three. [ applause ]

>> ladies and gentlemen, we're going to make a stage change here. okay. we're going to make a bit of a stage change and get to our program focused on the surrender meeting between lee and grant in the mclean house on april 9th, 1865. give us a couple of moments.

>> shoulder arms. present.

>> at 1:30 -- about 1:30 in the afternoon on april 9th, 1865, ulysses grant and small entourage of officers arrived here at the mclean house. if you look to your right giving you a sense of that moment, 150 years ago.

>> after he arrived in the yard general grant dismounted, and he would move directly up the steps of william mclean's house and disappeared into the home to discuss with robert e. lee the surrender of the army of northern virginia.

>> robert e. lee arrived here about one half hour prior to grant and was already in the parlor awaiting his arrival. for the next hour and 15 minutes, we will talk about this event, 150 years to the minute after it happened.

robert e. leigh was accompanied that day by charles marshall one of his aides, ulysses grant was accompanied by a large group of officers among them his military secretary ellie s. parker and a dozen other officers gathered with lee in the mclean house to negotiate, to record and to sign the terms of surrender of lee's army. today, 150 years ago to this minute, we are going to revisit that afternoon in the mclean parlor. that great meeting. we remember it in its fabric, assisted by some descendants of those who were there that day but we also look for its larger meaning, for our nation, and for its people. at about three minutes -- excuse me, at five minutes after 3:00 today, after lee departs the house, a moment you will witness here at 3:00, at about 3:05 we

will signal from this stage the beginning of bells across the land. this is an effort by which dozens if not hundreds of communities across the country will be tolling bells at 3:15 eastern daylight time this afternoon. the liberty bell will ring at 3:15 this afternoon. the bell in boston's old north church will ring at 3:15. as will the bell in the state capital in richmond and every firehouse in chicago and at hundreds of churches and schools across our nation. but the first of those bells will ring here, from this stage, just a few minutes before 3:15. the bells will ring here and across the land for four minutes, one minute for each year of the war. we hope after lee departs this scene at 3:0c9that you'll stay with us as we ring the bell.

and now we begin. appomattox court house early appomattox courthouse. before war came, the courthouse looked not unlike hundreds of other communities across america. the tavern served travelers on the richmond to lynchburg stage road as it had for decades. francis meeks ran a common general store across the lawn from the tavern right behind you. he also served he did, as the village's postmaster and pharmacist. one thing rendered appomattox different than many villages. it was the county seat. it's an undeniable curiosity that when in 1845, the virginia legislature created appomattox county and designated the county seat at this village then called clover hill. it's an undeniable curiosity that local leaders decided to build the jail before they built the courthouse.

once the courthouse opened in 1846 appomattox commenced a distinct rhythm that persisted for decades. monthly court days brought life to this community once a month as citizens gathered from across the county to conduct business to run for office, to sell goods, to sell slaves. to witness court proceedings. it's likely and probably that the only world famous residents at that timec probably made appearances at court days here prior to the war. sheriff wilson went about his business in early 1865 like many american sheriffs did, except that in 1865 he spent much more time rounding outzv confederate dezserters than outlawyers.

lewis isbel lived over here to my right. he was the commonwealth's attorney. another 150 or so residents lived in and around the village. beyond were farms small and large. almost all of them cultivated by enslaved people. slaves were central to appomattox county. the slaves who lived and worked here were worth almost twice as much as the land that they worked upon. their homes, simple frame or log buildings dotted the farms and backyards of the county and village. it's likely that by 1865 many of the men, women and children who lived in these cabins had heard of the emancipation proclamation. but the union army and the freedom that would accompany it i company it had always been miles and miles away from appomattox until april 1865.ok

>> in a small town like this, new neighbors met big excitement. they seem to come along only once a decade or so. and wilmer mclean, his wife virginia, son wilmer jr. and young daughter lulu arrived here in 1863. the curiosity was surely intensified. while appomattox experienced war only from afar, the mcleans moved here from the midst of it. indeed, a close reading of confederate newspapers in 1861 would've rendered the locals here familiar with the mclean name, long before the family arrived. wilmer mclean had married well. and in 1861, in addition to his pursuits as a sugar speculator and merchant he sizable plantation along bull run.

a crossing of bull run borne mclean's name and became moderately famous during the first major battles of the civil war. two,u general beauregard made mclean's house the headquarters during the first part of the war and mentioned it in his reports. wilmerñi mclean was no joel sweeney. so far as celebrities went, but he likelyc arrived in appomattox with a tinge of fame. wilmer mclean had a complex relationship with the war and the confederacy. the war tangibly threatened his home. mclean's livelihood depended on the confederacy. he did a good business renting buildings and supplying the confederate army around manassas junction and with various goods and services. he reinvested some of his profits back into the

confederacy, buying hundreds of dollars worth of confederate bonds. in early 1862, when the confederates departed northern virginia, so did the mcleans. at least his business.ñr he sent his family and some of his slaves a i way for security sake. and after the second battle bloodied the field of manassas mclean decided to leave it all together. the decision brought him here to appomattox appomattox. a place that had seen none of the war and had felt its hardships only through the letters home of the serving soldiers and the dire news of death by battle and sickness. wilmer mclean his family, and at least some of their slaves moved into75rq comfortable brick house next to us here. there, mclean would disappear from history@oeñ until april 9th,

1865 when one of robert e. lee's staff officers encountered him on the dirt streets of the village at appomattox courthouse. >> robert e. lee it's likely in 1865 -- his name has come to us in simple terms as a man of marvel, status a product of effective simplicity unaffected dignity and incredible boldness. but there is more to lee than that. he was deeply analytical and saw the implications of his acts more clearly than even most of his ardent admirers did. he became unshakably committed to the success of the confederacy. to sustaining the differences between north and south by forging a new independent nation. and he did, perhaps, more than anyone else to nearly make that happen.

in the middle of 1862, robert e. lee began a year-long stretch of stunning military successes perhaps unmatched in our nation's history. in fredericksburg and chancellorsville. every one of them spectacular against significant odds. the victories brought him fame, but more importantly, they brought the confederacy hope. while lee won victories in virginia, around him, the confederate war effort stumbled. he knew well victories by him and his army stood as the only beacon of hope for the confederacy. he knew too, that the feats inflicted by him might challenge the will of the northern people to continue this war. the psychological impact of his successes he knew would far outstrip their military value.

his every decision his every act was purposeful. hoping for a decisive blow that would tip the scales in the confederacy's favor. hoped and believed a soldier from south carolina declared no one can incite our enthusiasm like he does. it makes one feel better to look at him. unlike many of his opponents, lee spent little time worrying about what union generals might do to him. instead, he spent his energy figuring out what he could do to union generals and their armies. his was a mind that craved the initiative. and he was most effective when he possessed it. and that he largely did until may 1864 when ulysses s. grant arrived in virginia.

>> unlike lee, there would be few profuse descriptions of ulysses s. grant, commander of all union armies. one veteran officer described him as stumpy, unmilitary, slouchy, and western looking. very ordinary, in fact. a private soldier who saw him in a review said he rode his horse like a bag of meal. another noted in walking he leans forward and toddles. though the bearing he could not have been more different than robert e. lee. by the time the armies arrived at appomattox, he might have been only slightly less famous than his opponent. certainly, he had become a central to his nation's

aspirations as lee was to the confederacy. charles francis adams jr., a grandson of presidents conceded grant's awkward ways but saw the man within. he's a remarkable man. he handles those around him so quietly and well. he has a faculty of disposing of work. and managing men. president lincoln recognized grant's skills, but especially admired his persistentsy sissistencey of purpose. he has the grit of a bulldog. another officer put it in even more colorful terms. he habitually wears an expression as if he is determined to drive his head through a brick wall and was about to do it. general grant attached himself to the army of the potomac in

1864 and promptly set about taking the initiative from robert e. lee. with a determination that matched lee's and with an army larger than the army of northern virginia, grant thundered through virginia through the wilderness, to the cold harbor. in front of richmond and petersburg. on april 1st 1865 he imposed disaster on the confederates at five forks. petersburg fell on april 2nd and richmond the next day. lee and his army fled westward trying to escape. the parallel pass of the army finally intersected here at appomattox courthouse not far from the home of the newcomer, wilmer mclean. >> the apple tree.

grant first proposed that lee surrender near farmville on april 7th. but lee danced around the issue trying to buy some time. keeping his options open. until all hope was extinguished. that moment came on the morning of september -- excuse me, sunday, april 9th. the supplies lee had hoped would feed his army in appomattox station fell into union hands. before dawn that morning sensing what the day might bring and knowing that how he portrayed himself in defeat mattered a great deal lee dressed in a new gray uniform and sash. and buckled on his sword, something he rarely did. at some point, he received the worst news at his headquarters east of the river. his army could not breakthrough the union lines west of the courthouse. on dozens of fields, lee had always had options.

but no more. there's nothing left for me to do, he said, than to go see general grant. and i had rather die a thousand deaths. over the next many hours, lee sent three notes through the lines to grant. the last was simple and direct. quote, i ask a suspension of hostilities pending the adjustment of the terms of surrender of this army. about 10:30 in the morning of april 9th 1865, the guns of the armies fell silent. lee waited for a response under an apple tree along the stage road near the narrow banks of the appomattox river about a mile from where we are. not far from the banjo playing sweeneys' home, all the brothers were dead by now. a staff officer hauled up some fence rails for lee to sit upon as he waited. for a time, the general fell asleep. as he awaited word from grant.

just before 1:00 p.m., the union staff officer bearing a flag of truce and a note from grant arrived at lee's apple tree headquarters. grant's note informed lee i will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. it is now my pleasure to call forth patrick schroeder who for 20 years has explored the lanes the fields and the home places of appomattox courthouse as an historian for the national park service. today, he will carry our story from the apple tree into mclean's parlor, 150 years ago to this minute. >> thank you, john thank you for all of you being in attendance today to remember this important date in our country's history. the union officer carrying grant's letter was lieutenant

colonel orville babcock. named william mckee dunn. they found lee resting under that apple tree by the appomattox river. lee had with him only lieutenant colonel charles marshall, his aid to camp of his staff and an orderly named joshua johns. his other aid to camp, walter taylor had begged off from having to suffer the humiliation of attending the surrender meeting. marshall did not. in fact, lee refused to duck the responsibility himself. attending the meeting in person. the previous correspondence, grant offered to save lee the humiliation anymore that he would meet with anyone that lee designated.

lee's father, light horse harry lee had been with washington at yorktown and witnessed what he deemed to be the shameful behavior of lord corn wallaceñr by sending a subordinate to formally surrender the british army. lee would not shame the family's name by transferring the responsibility to a subordinate. as the small party left the apple tree site and reached the appomattox river, lee's horse traveler stopped to drink. continued into the village behind us. and encountered wilmer mclean who was outside of his house, perhaps looking to have a guard posted at his home. mclean first showed him a building most likely in the front corner of his yard. the rain tavern as it was known

but the buildings was unfurnished. then mclean offered his own home, which stands behind us. behind me and in front of you. it was a fine brick home. marshall returned to lee to guide him to the location. the group arrived at the house at about 1:00 p.m. they left lieutenant dunn at the gate. he was posted there to watch for the approach of grant. joshua johns held the horses of lee and marshall outside the house, probably in this area where this stand is set up. babcock, marshall and lee entered the house, turned to the left and took seats in the parlor. lee's biographer suggested this may have been the longest half hour of lee's life.

after riding for more than 20 miles, grant arrived with his staff in tow at about 1:30 in the afternoon. he picked up general sheridan and ord at the top of the ridge in front of you. on his way to the mclean house. in fact, he asked sheridan where general lee was and sheridan said he is over in that house waiting to surrender to you. and he invited sheridan to come along with him. he said, come on, let's go. when grant enters the parlor, lee met him. there, indeed was a contrast between the two men. first of all, lee was 58 years old, grant was 42. there was a 16-year difference between each -- the two men.

and sometimes, i think too much is made about their dress. general lee put on a new uniform that day. said he expected to be general grant's prisoner, and wanted to make his best appearance. general grant was never a fancy dresser. he had just rode over 20 miles on virginia muddy roads. as you probably experienced today. grant wasn't riding by himself. he had his staff with him. had an escort. third west virginia calvary. none of grant's staff was clean. it wasn't like the mud just stuck to grant and no one else. they were all mud splattered. general lee had put on a new uniform and he rode only about a mile and a mile and a half to this meeting.

grant explained that he did not have his baggage with him and he didn't want to makelp general lee wait. general lee said he was glad that grant didn't make him wait and he came to the meeting. they found common ground they began to discuss. grant brought up he met general lee in the mexican war. general lee recalled that he had met grant. as the generals are speaking general grant's staff files into the room. and after some time of conversation about mexico, lee called grant's attention to the matter at hand and inquired to the terms. grant replied that the terms would be substantially the same as what he had wrote the previous day. lee then asked grant to put his terms in writing. and then lee sat down near a large marble top white table.

while puffing on a cigar, grant sat at a small wooden table that had an oval top on it and began writing in pencil in his manifold order book. observing lee as he wrote, grant said he could not discern lee's true feelings. and he said the initial joy he had felt at receiving lee's letter wanting to meet with hill to surrender had dissipated. and now, he felt sad and depressed. he recalled i felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe. the wishes of lincoln came out in the terms. grant had met lincoln on april -- march 28th and discussed the end of the war. and in effect lincoln had said, let them up easy. after all, these men would become, hopefully, worthy united states citizens again.ñ grant was generous. he was not going to send the confederate soldiers to prison

camp. they would beá:siñ paroled and allowed to go home. the officers were allowed to keep their side arms and personal baggage. and their private horses. with the terms written lee would not have to surrender his sword. he would not suffer that humiliation. after reading these generous terms, lee said this will have a very happy effect upon my army. then he inquired if the enlisted men of the army could keep their horses, as well. grant stated the terms did not allow this. and lee acknowledged they did not. but grant was perceptive and caught lee's anxiety on the matter and he acted quickly. he was not going to make lee beg for this concession. he said to lee that he did not know that the confederate soldiers own their own horses. but he assumed that many of the

men were small farmers and they would need toes horses to put in a crop. he then stated he would not change the terms as written but would give instructions to allow the confederate soldiers to take their horses home to work their farms. grant well understood that this meeting taking place in this parlor was about the future of the country. grant -- or lee responded once again, this will have the best possible effect on my army. lee found the terms agreeable. the task of putting the final draft into ink fell to lieutenant colonel e. lee parker. a native american of the seneca people. who was said to have the best penmanship on the general's staff. parker sat down to write, but he lacked ink.

lieutenant colonel charles marshall lee's aid to camp alleviated the problem by producing a box wood ink stand for parker. parker wrote beautifully and the final copy, the final letter which is on loan to the national park here at appomattox from stratford hall is on display in our visitors' center.pu9ñbx marshall was tasked with writing lee's acceptance letter of the terms. but marshall lacked paper. grant's staff quickly produced paper for colonel marshall. right there in the mclean parlor, you have the inner dependency between the north and the south. while waiting for the final letters to be completed, lee mentioned a grant he had a thousand of grant's men prisoners. mainly captured at the april 6th battle of high bridge near farmville. and lee dropped another rather

large hint saying he had no food for grant's men and, indeed, he had nothing for his own men. no food for his own men. grant responded that he could send over 25,000 rations to feed lee's army. lee gratefully acknowledged that that was ample. well drafting the letters continued, grant introduced some of the officers in the room with him, including general seth williams. general lee knew seth williams well. williams had been lee'sage -- from 1852 to 1855. another person that general grant introduced was a young captain that had joined his staff less than a month earlier. his name was robert lincoln.

he was the son of abraham lincoln. he had recently graduated from harvard and joined general grant's staff in mid march and here in the mclean parlor. we don't have a record of how general lee reacted to meeting robert lincoln. the 8-year-old daughter of wilma mclean left a rag doll on the couch in the parlor where the meeting occurred. and when everyone came in they took that doll and placed it on the mantle. of the parlor. and afterwards, the officer started tossing that rag doll around. and it was kept as a war souvenir by captain thomas moore. they called it the silent witness. the moore family kept that doll in new york. the men would exhibit it as a war souvenir.

in the early 1990s the ladies of the family saying the men had passed away they wanted that to come back to the appomattox courthouse, and it's now on the second level of our visitor center museum. once the letters were finished by parker and marshall they were exchanged. the commanders lee and grant did not sign one document. they simply exchanged those letters. the meeting concluding lee and grant shook hands, general lee went out on to the front porch called for johns and traveler. and once lee mounted, grant who had come out of the house with his staff tipped his hat to lee. and lee returned that gesture and began to ride to his army. upon approaching his men in the appomattox river valley, general lee informed them that they had

been surrendered and then told them to go home and make as good citizens as you have soldiers. when general grant left the mclean house, he heard the celebratory firing of muskets and cannon being discharged. he ordered the firings stopped. he said the rebels are our country men again. when the meeting concluded a path was set for the future of the nation. when the meeting concluded, it meant that after four years of slaughter, americans would stop butchering americans on the battlefield. there would be a lasting peace and a more permanent binding for the nation. lee's letter of acceptance of grant's terms made the emancipation proclamation

effective throughout virginia. and i firmly believe and agree with what a west virginia soldier, an infantryman named j.b. cunningham present at the battle on the morning of april 9th 1865 what he wrop home to his family in a letter. the letter stated april 9th is the greatest day in american history. thank you. >> thank you, patrick. americans have a deep and abiding personal connection with the american civil war. those americans who do not have a family connection are often intensely interested in those who do. we have seen it throughout the observances here in virginia.

like wilmer mclean, descendents carry a bit of celebrity. we welcome this morning a slew of notable descendents s. and this afternoon, we're happy to feature one of them once again for you. a man who has descended from the only confederate officer who accompanied lee into the parlor that afternoon. dennis bigelow is the great, great grandson of charles marshall. as i said, the only officer to join lee inside the house. on most days, mr. bigelow can be found working as a costume interpreter for jamesmen row. we've asked dennis if he would take a few minutes this afternoon and share with you his perspective of having a family

connection to an historic event of such magnitude and reach. mr. dennis bigelow. >> you've been sitting for a while. so you don't need a repeat of what you've heard so well in terms of the particulars of what happened in the mclean house and the surrender. so i'm not going to read that out of grandfather marshall's book. but, i think, you would like to hear this. punctuated by the loss of a third of the army of northern virginia at sailor's creek on

the 6th of april with confederate general gordon having been stopped dead by a sea of general sheridan's blue coats on the morning of the 9th general lee knew his shrinking army could not remain whole. and could not break out of its encirclement. after four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude the army of northern virginia must yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. in the wee hours of the 9th of april, general lee's aide lieutenant colonel charles marshall and fellow staff officers of general's longstreet and gordon took their only refreshment of the day. a little corn meal gruel they

shared from a heated shaving tin. and grandfather marshall noted later that this was our last meal in the confederacy. our next was taken in the united states. the agreement of surrender which took place 150 years ago was the culmination of seven letters between general grant and general lee. exchanges initiated by grant on the 7th and closed by grant on the morning of the 9th. the number 7 which might be seen as the number of completion if not perfection.

grandfather marshall noted here that on the 9th of april at the little village of appomattox when general lee met general grant, the question of the union of the states passed into history, never to be revived! but what must never be forgotten here, he felt was the conduct here of vicktorious americans in blue toward defeated americans in gray. specifically marshall said of the federals, they love their enemies and did good to those who hated them.

this grace kindness and magnanimity over four days of surrender proceedings from the 9th to the 12th from agreement of terms to stacking of arms from the conduct of general grant to the gracious spirit of general chamberlain, from the soldiers of the blue toward the gray. from the strong to the broken and lifting them up. forever molded charles marshall's life after appomattox making him a peacemaker. and he readily alluded to matthew 5:9. blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of god.

and so after that, he became the peacemaker amv' the diehards of the lost cause. renewing him as a citizen of the united states of america. and he did that until he died in 1902. but before he died in 1892 a memorial day he was asked to give a keynote speech before grant's tomb that he may carry on the work of peacemaking, which is our job today.r >> thank you, dennis. it is probably at this moment

150 years ago that lieutenant colonel ely parker of grant's staff was tribing the final terms. surrender of grant's signature. including the greatfá grand nephew of eli parker, a seneca indian who would become he remained legendary for a story told earlier today when lee met parker at the conclusion of the meeting.g

het flinched and wondered at the presence of a man in the room. after he covered himself lee looked at eli parker, extended his hand and said, i'm glad to see one real american here. eli parker grabbed lee's hand in return. he told the confederate general the man in appomattox who probably had more cause to doubt his status as an american being assured of his status as an american by a man who had to strive hard to be seen as an american. and eli parker turned and shook his hand and said we are all americans this day. and like to take this moment to introduce to you just brieflys7 to acknowledge his presence here.

al parker, who is the great, great grand nephew of eli parker of the seneca nation. >> in the seneca language, i wish to acknowledge all that have gathered here today and i give a thanksgiving that you have arrived safely and enjoy your day here at appomattox. wonderful time, tremendous commemoration. it's a great privilege and honor for me to represent the parker family and to take part iníao this commemorative event. thank you very much. thank you. >> i have to say that all of us who work for the national park

service. many of us have done many events eyu$e 150th. and i have to say,)l at the number of people here. we thank you for much for being here. it's time as this meeting in the house wound down between 2:30 and 3:00 to take through maybe a larger lens. now, we are honored today to welcome dr. ed aires. some of you met ed before. if you're in the sweltering heat at manassas on july 21st 2011, if you can remember back that far, he gave the keynote address at manassas on that day. it seems a very,