lincoln always fascinates people to this day, but this year in particular is important because it marks the 150th anniversary of his assassination. the first >> anytime singer website at the span.org/history. >> american history tv was lvie ive from the university of virginia in charlottesville on the civil war. next, our coverage from the symposium, including the surrender of the confederate armies, the assassination of president lincoln the cultural environment in both the north and south, as well as the meaning of the work for african-americans. the american civil war commission organized the event. >> welcome everybody to this

morning's panel. we are going to talk a good bit today about the aftermath of the civil war and the legacy and memory. in this morning's panel we're going to focus on the events of the spring and 1865. the last chapter in the work. -- in the war. i enjoyed by experts on lincoln, lee, and grant. elizabeth and gary. let us go back spring of 1865 and sets the stage. in march 1865, lincoln gives his famous second inaugural address. what are his hopes and expectations for the spring and his vision of what victory and peace might look like? mr. holzer: shall i start? professor varon: that would be great. mr. holzer: some people expect a more triumphalist second

inaugural. but before he gets to ounces of malice, makes clear that he believes the war must continue as he puts it, until every drop of blood drawn with a lash is repaid by one drawn by the sword , if need. and he makes extraordinary declaration that north and south alike are equally guilty for the long-standing original american sin of slavery. only then does he suggest that “malice toward none” will be the principal by which he will run the post-war re-united states. it is an extraordinary message. the debate ever since has been who he included in the group.

was he talking about racial reconciliation and the emergence of a new black citizenry? i think he makes it clear little bit later. i will not jump ahead, but by april in visiting richmond and what turned out to be his last speech, he is clear about voting rights for african-american and a rather more revolutionary look at a postwar society. professor leonard: i would say something else, how far his view has evolved since he first became president and when he started thinking about what reconstruction would look like since he had to be thinking about it in some way from the moment he became president is not even before when south carolina seceded. so he has really evolved, he has really come a long way in as far as what that peace should encompass. professor varon: good. let's talk about his

counterparts, jefferson davis and the state of the confederacy. gary, what does davis expect for the spring? professor gallagher: davis is obviously in a very different position than abraham lincoln it is interesting to see the things he wrote at this stage of the war because in some ways he seems to be a little out of touch from what was actually unfolding. robert e. lee was deeply pessimistic long before the spring of 1865, but davis is a resolute confederate nationalist and determined, and he seems to cling to the hope that somehow the confederacy can emerge from this incredible bloodletting as a republic. it is kind of hard to really get into his mind at that point because he was off to one very far end of the spectrum in that regard in terms of the confederacy. professor varon: go ahead, harold.

mr. holzer: i am always joined drawn back to what lincoln thought surely what happened to jefferson davis. professor gallagher: get away! mr. holzer: get away. i'm not sure he ever says let them up easy, but he does tell grant and sherman that jefferson davis'predicament reminds them of a little story. professor varon: just imagine that. [laughter] mr. holzer: imagine. he is reminded of the irishman who gave up the drink, and after a couple of weeks on the wagon he cannot bear it anymore, so he said, i would like to order a lemonade, but when my back is turned, just slip in a little brandy unbeknownst to me. if jefferson davis escapes unbeknownst to me, that will be fine. professor gallagher: nothing like a good irish stereotype. [laughter] i did it for your benefit, of course. professor varon: so you talked a little bit there about lincoln

and grant and lincoln's instructions to grant. let's get to april. early april, the federal forces like the siege line that runs from richmond to petersburg, lee and his troops had west, and the troops catch up to him at appomattox courthouse. what happened at appomattox, and does appomattox effectively end the civil war? it is commonplace to observe that appomattox effectively ended the civil war. does it end the civil war, and if so, why? to lincoln and lee's minds, does it represent the end? professor leonard: i would say no. certainly from the perspective of history you could run the civil war pretty far forward into the 19th century depending on how you calculate the war ending. i think it is clearly an important point, clearly an important surrender, but there's a lot to be resolved, and even after all of the confederate army has surrendered, there is a lot of resolution that needs to

be accomplished. it takes a very long time for that to happen. professor varon: let's talk about grant's term. does he have lincoln's mandate? it's even filling lincoln's wishes as he offers those magnanimous terms to the confederate? mr. holzer: i think so. we only have the record grant left from the city point conference. we have the record that grant left to the city point conference. i want to get back to what elizabeth said -- i think lincoln thinks it is the end of the civil war. bells toll in washington. he has already been on the extraordinary tour in richmond where he had walked up the streets to the confederate white house, he is greeted jubilantly by the african-american population. and a couple of days or a day after appomattox, he appears at the window of the white house reclaiming the song "dixie" for the union and ordering the band to play "dixie," and his son waves the captured confederate flag.

he thinks this is it. professor gallagher: i think what elizabeth said is right. from our perspective, we know things will play out really in a slow motion for a long time, but i think in the moment, the surrender of lee's army meant everything because lee and his , army had become absolutely the most important indication that there is still a potential for a confederate nation. it is the most important national institution in the confederacy. they tower above the confederate resistance, and when they are gone, i think for most people that signals the end of the war. it doesn't for jefferson davis who packs up in richmond on april 2 and has south to danville and even suggests what becomes a famous message up to the confederate people saying "the war is just entering a another phase." lee quickly told him, that is not right. [laughter] a big phase just ended.

[laughter] professor leonard: certainly be shooting war as well pretty much over, but there is much fighting left to go on. mr. holzer: certainly among n unknowable element. lincoln when i let this moment go by, and on washington side, the triumphant bit he resisted doing when it would have been premature. professor gallagher: what about what the audience wanted? that is absolutely what they wanted. they did not get what they wanted. mr. holzer: they got blamed. professor varon: we hear a lot of talk about guerrilla warfare, lee rejected that. how much of an option was it? professor gallagher: it was not an option. people argue that jefferson davis called for a guerrilla war in a message that i mentioned, but he does not. what he says in that message is

that the fall of richmond and petersburg frees the army of northern virginia to take to the field again. he imagines the army of northern virginia unleashed, not a guerrilla war of some kind. a guerrilla war is absolutely -- counter to what the confederacy is trying to do, which is to establish a slaveholding public for stuff you cannot have a slaveholding society with a guerrilla war. i think davis was being misinterpreted, but lee would have none of it anyway. he absolutely said no, it will not change the outcome, it is over, we tried, it is over. but it is seductive. this is so long ago now. there are some in the audience to remember vietnam, but in the post-vietnam way of phrasing things. it is completely ahistorical and inaccurate. professor varon: lee observes in his address promulgated to his troops that the confederacy

yielded to the overwhelming numbers and resources of the yankees. how sufficient an explanation for a union victory and confederacy is that ultimately? how far they go to explaining the demise of the confederacy? if it does not go far enough what are the other factors that go into explaining the outcome of the war? mr. holzer: it is certainly a wonderful exultation, and the seeds are planted for the lost cause of mythology. as gary has written, the serving as an introduction to you.. as gary has written, confederacy does not exactly have to win the war, it has to break the will of the northern people to continue to wage war and lose men and suffer the enormous sacrifices network endured on both sides and there are moments during the

war, before antietam and after chancellorsville, when the northern opinion, and certainly before the election of 1864, when it was possible to see the north giving up, not winning but saying " go and let us just live in two countries." professor varon: right, and lee himself was very invested. he believed in revolution in the north. mr. holzer: the overwhelming numbers was not the only explanation. lincoln somehow kept northern will sufficiently above 50%, as he proved in the april 1854 election to continue waging the war. professor gallagher: with a big assist from grant and sherman. [laughter] professor varon: let me just follow up with that, lincoln and the press, how much did the handling of the press, how big that loom in his leadership? mr. holzer: it is a huge

advantage for him that he was so deft at getting republican editors -- and he chiefly dealt with republican editors, and he understood that democratic journals would attack him, north as well as south, certainly in the north throughout the war. but he reached out to them, he befriended them, rewarded them with patronage jobs along the way. this is not a new thing, but lincoln certainly followed in the tradition established from the early days of the century on of making newspapermen diplomats, postmasters, port officers, indian agents -- whatever jobs were available to supplement their income and winning their continued loyalty that way. he also gave them what we today would call "scoops." helped them reach their audiences overnight and did not shut down newspapers that were obliging -- remember that in the lincoln administration, the threat always hovered over

democratic newspapers that if they crossed the fine and undefined line between dissent and treason, they might be forced to shut down the confiscation of their printing press and the imprisonment of editors. one more thing that president lincoln should be credited for because it was quite miraculous, is he developed this system of going directly to the people in the absence of press conferences, press secretaries or really a major public schedule. lincoln was not an orator during his presidency. the gettysburg address was a major exception to that rule. he did not week publicly largely, but he did issue policy statements directly to the newspapers, couching them as letters either to editors or politicians. and this became a way for him to communicate directly to the

people, communicate his goals and win confidence and support for policies such as black enlistees emancipation, and ultimately voting rights. professor varon: let us think about the other factors leadership being an important among them. harmony among those men is essential. turning to the southern side of the equation, there is a theory of confederate defeat that focuses on internal dissent in a demoralization within the confederacy. we see lee himself alluded to this practice in a q rights to the jefferson davis on april 12. in which he says in effect, the men in the recent campaign did not fight with the spirit they had earlier in the war because they are worried about the folks back home. how much important is the home front, is a demoralization a big factor in defeat?

professor gallagher: it is certainly a factor that there's a tremendous amount of dissent and disaffection behind the lines of the confederacy just as there are in the united states. there is nothing equivalent to the new york city draft riots in the confederacy, but there is a phenomenon of president and the united states, and that is this tension between serving the nation in the army and worrying about your family and can focus kinfolk at home because the war is actually taking place in the confederacy, so that is one dimension that is different. by this stage of the war, there was certainly a great deal of communication from the home front saying you really have to , come back and take care of us, this is not working outcome and you have a choice to make -- are you going to be in the army or take care of your family? yes, that is present. there is disaffection, and if you look at the degree of mobilization and the degree of loss in the confederacy, it is a

very committed effort, but the erosion of the will to exist on the homefront important? it is, it unquestionably is , as part of the equations. i think what explains the end of the war is the united states army proved it can go wherever they wanted to go, do whatever they wanted to do, and smash the rebel army. that sent a message to the home front. the davis government was powerless, as sherman said, to protect them. professor leonard: i just have a question of my own. would you say that the whole idea of enlisting black soldiers in the confederate army is a sign of internal disaffection in the south? professor gallagher: i think that could be read several ways, and this is something that could be wildly exaggerated, the notion that there were 100,000 black confederate soldiers -- that is hallucinatory. [laughter] professor varon: is 5000 hallucinatory? professor gallagher: it is a range of hallucinations. [laughter]

that sort of sets out the parameters for them. but i think it is a measure, the degree to which people became invested in the establishment of the confederate states that they would consider putting some black men in uniform in order to save the whole enterprise. i mean, lee was very pragmatic about this. lee supported that, and he was put forward as a sort of proto-abolitionist because of that. no, no, no. [laughter] lee's argument there was if we lose the war, the republicans set the terms, they will destroy our slaveholding social system entirely co. if by arming a few black man we established -- professor varon: save what is left of it. professor gallagher: right. i think it is a fascinating debate -- no one knows how great wars rage on.

mr. holzer: doesn't the talk of black enlistment, even if it is no more than talk, doesn't that suggest a degree of nationalism or national spirit that continued? it is not just surrender, it is let us find one more desperate nationalistic way -- professor gallagher: then you accept conscription, then you accept taxes, and they accepted a central governments, the states rights of society, the central government that proved more obstructive by far and told even the 20th century, so that suggests to me -- and i'll stop. [laughter] professor varon: it calls into question the overwhelming numbers of resources that confederates could crunch the numbers, the union had more men and more of everything than the confederacy did. professor gallagher: so did the british! professor varon: right. they had examples of the underdog having one that they could look to, but they did not

believe the overwhelming numbers need be decisive, and makeup -- they kept looking for ways to make sure they were not until the very end. professor leonard: i think it diminishes our attention on the huge job that the union had. professor varon: that is exactly right. professor leonard: it may be that the researchers were better, but the job was -- professor varon: and that is something that comes out in the appomattox moment, in the sense that the overwhelming numbers really irks northerners. it irks grant to no end because , they believe it was a failure on the part of lee to give the victors their due, to acknowledge that it was the union's skill and bravery and lincoln's persistence and leadership and virtues, it is a grant of their moral superiority. they believe the occupied he moral high ground every irrevocably. -- very irrevocably. professor leonard: and a

composting is only the beginning of the end. you have to occupy and enforce the peace, so it goes on well past surrender. professor varon: absolutely. so let's turn now to lincoln's assassination. we have two great experts on this fascinating and complex topic here with us. lincoln and grant have precious little time to celebrate their victory because of john wilkes booth's heinous deed, so what do we know that motivated booth? what did people at the time know about what motivated booth? mr. holzer: a sudden and not surprising and very welcome uptick on the literature of the subject, timed perfectly to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the assassination. there is a very fine biography on john wilkes booth by terry alfred. those interested in early 19th-century theatre will love the stories of the southern and northern backstage life, but terry alford has brought us back

to what i guess is called the "mad booth" theory of the assassination, you can acknowledge that he was deeply racist, fearful of a mixed race society, furious that his beloved south has been conquered, and the slaveocracy was going to be dismantled hopeful that a post-facoto blow could reemerge the conflict but , in the end, alford makes the case that he is bonkers. [laughter] professor gallagher: is that a clinical term? [laughter] mr. holzer: and it is sort of -- those of you who are all enough to remember vietnam, gary can -- gary's fans. [laughter] professor gallagher: ouch!

mr. holzer: there's a film called "double life" with ronald colman -- is that too far back? -- in which he culminated the death scene and killed his leading lady, or tried to, booth is convinced that lincoln is caesar, and he played anthony right before -- that was his last stage role before he gave up the stage to concentrate either on kidnapping lincoln or the murder plot, so part of it is bravado, part of it is losing his way, part of it is racism. i had just given a talk in which in which i try to tamp down this idea that booth said in hearing lincoln's last speech, in which lincoln calls for limited african-american suffrage, the vote for the very intelligent or those who had served in our army which sounds like means

testing or worse today, but it marked the first time that american president had ever called for black voting rights. booth was allegedly in the crowd and said something to someone -- probably that is the last speech he ever will make. what i don't think he did mean was negro citizenship, and he didn't say negro. that comes from a novel written in the 1890's and allegedly was said to a different co-conspirator, but i'm not sure that people of the day understood the racist part of booth's motives. i am not sure that that without of theas out at the time. professor varon: i think people felt very much that booth was tried to rob the union of its victory and this was a lashing out of a man who was driven mad by defeat. professor gallagher: and of course they believe that the confederate government was involved, and that was part of the pursuit of davis.

at all caught up with davis must have been implicated in this, it only makes sense that that would happen -- professor leonard: how can such a random bunch of ragtag conspirators possibly -- after years of protecting the president, how could they have accomplished what they accomplished? mr. holzer: and of course stanton is convinced for weeks and weeks that davis is the mastermind. scholars alleged into the late 20th century that booth was an actual confederate agent, which i do not buy. how do you go to a famous actor and say "be an agent?" [laughter] professor varon: let's talk about the manhunt that brings booth down and the debates in the north, which open up at that moment of the assassination, between those calling for punishments, and what kind and of whom and so on. professor leonard: i just have to bring joseph holt into the conversation.

i like to tell the story that as lincoln is being murdered in washington, joseph holt, who will become the chief prosecutor of the conspirators, not booth because he is dead by then, he is in charleston on the 14th in fort sumner, giving a very profound and angry speech completely at odds with the "malice towards none" approach. his speech was entitled "treason and its treatment," and it is all about punishments, although not for the common southern people before the leadership. he wants to go after all of them -- jefferson davis, robert e. lee, henry wirz, anybody he can find he would like to go after all of them. and this is before he knows the president has been killed, so by the time -- and he was very fond of lincoln and worked very well with him since 1862 and he is

, going to take that whole mentality, plus stanton's conviction, which holds shares that davis had set the whole thing into motion right after -- right into the months of may and june and july when a trials go on. professor gallagher: many in the confederacy were thrilled, there is this notion i growth later partly in the reconciliation era and shows up in many movies from the 1930's, it said we have lost our best friend. they are weeping he was not killed sooner. [laughter] the diaries are filled with triumphant passages that "the tyrant was dead." they were very happy generally in the former confederacy. mr. holzer: any dissent from the rejoicing, it is the fear of --

even harder hand that might come next. you see it n the diaries, what will come next, what will this terrible traitor to the south, andrew johnson, do next? professor leonard: he was given early signals. he said some pretty offending the things. professor varon: let's go back a little bit to get johnson on the stage. professor leonard: must we? professor varon: yes. we have to go back to 1864. why is johnson on the ticket in that complicated election, the one that lincoln fears? why does he get rid of his mainer? what explains johnson's presence on the ticket, and what does he seem to represent at that moment? mr. holzer: lincoln was the western candidate in 1860, it seemed to choose and eastern europe to balance the ticket, the assumption being that we can

win northern votes and not southern votes. you can't get more eastern than hannibal of maine. in 1864, hamlin is a bit expendable, lincoln is the representative man up north, and if you're creating a national union party, as the republicans rebranded themselves in 1864 you pick the one senator who stayed in the senate, and southern guy, so it is a northern, southern -- professor gallagher: the republicans need -- they cannot win the war just with republicans. it is on the basis of a union. andrew johnson absolutely exemplified what unionism there was in the democratic party and in the slaveholding state. harold talked about these moments peril for the united states. in the late summer of 1864, it went lincoln with sure that the

republicans would not be reelected, he was certainly one of those, and this is part of the effort, at least for my point of view, to broaden republican appeal, do not call ourselves republicans play our , best card, which is union, and put this guy, andrew johnson -- it shows that it does matter who gets chosen as the vice presidential candidate. professor leonard: it is also the case that lincoln is looking ahead to reconstruction. the postwar. by this point. he is thinking well, to bring the nation together, that johnson is a better choice. professor varon: it represents a persistent fantasy that there is a latent unionism to those who do not own slaves, and that is a persistent fantasy, we talk about confederate nationalism, massive evidence that is not an accurate depiction of the way things are on the ground, so why was some confederates fear that johnson might be harsher than lincoln? what clues had johnson given them? mr. holzer: just hatred of the aristocracy was what was feared mostly.

getting back for a second to the june convention, the big question -- and no one is ever found the smoking gun -- was whether lincoln manipulated the election of johnson or by tradition allowed the convention to choose. professor gallagher: right. mr. holzer: and there are some people, like william stoddard, who was one of lincoln's clerks who said he went to baltimore, where the convention was held, expressly to communicate to the delegates lincoln's desire that andrew johnson be made the vice presidential candidate. a couple of people have claimed that dubious honor. professor varon: lincoln certainly had incentives. he thought the choice of johnson would legitimate his plans of ongoing destruction that if johnson is on the ticket, then the radicals and congress have to give more credence to that plan. mr. holzer: we have to remember lincoln never plans to see andrew johnson again once he becomes vice president. [laughter] professor varon: and in fact, he barely did. mr. holzer: hannibal hamlin was

not even in washington when the emancipation proclamation was issued. he wrote a letter saying, what a nice speech that was. [laughter] professor gallagher: and harry truman did not know there was an atomic button, either. professor varon: we knew there were two accidental presidents in the antebellum period who did not work very well, so the idea that lincoln did not have to imagine what a johnson presidency might look like, much of the campaign literature for lincoln and johnson's take is that johnson is an asset because he compare so favorably to the mcclellan campaign. professor gallagher: mcclellan had a vice presidential candidate who was a liability. professor varon: he was a big liability. professor gallagher: i do not think these guys thought about their mortality up to fdr. they just don't.

and it is not as if thousands of people saw andrew johnson giving a speech. professor leonard: johnson had done reasonably well in tennessee. he had sort of maxed out unfortunately. he had sort of reach the pinnacle -- professor gallagher: and beyond. professor leonard: so we have some people in the south expecting that johnson will be harsher than lincoln. and he makes the statement early on. professor varon: and he makes a statement early on, he had been quite stern in his handling of -- professor gallagher: he certainly was not considered an abolitionist. professor varon: by no means. professor gallagher: and many consider lincoln abolitionist, and that is -- professor varon: let's talk about that -- we noted that lee's army was the last confederate army to surrender. there was a controversial surrender of joe johnston's army to sherman. why has it become so controversial? professor gallagher: because

sherman extended terms that were breathtakingly broad, but basically set the pattern for what reconstruction would be. there was a political dimension as well as a military dimension to them, and he was reined in by grant, who said no, you can extend my terms. what were the terms i extended at appomattox? those are the terms, not the ones that sherman extended to joseph johnston down at davis. in the midst of those davis told joseph johnston to let the infantry go but sort of take your cavalry and maintain the resistance, and sherman ignored him and followed through, but it is sherman going way off. professor varon: he encroached into the political realm their brief was to secure the surrender, the army was supposed to leave those questions about whether the confederates would vote against him a whether these states will be brought back to the union, those things were further the politicians to deal with in washington, and sherman to be conceding political rights

and immunity and doing what mcclellan tried to do. mr. holzer: we were talking about why the south might ever fear johnson as opposed to lincoln, so supposedly at this first surrender ceremony, isn't that the one at which sherman hands johnson the dispatch this as president lincoln has been killed, and then sweat appears on his forehead. professor gallagher: when was that written, harold? [laughter] i wrote it just before i came out. [laughter] mr. holzer: there is a generalcy of retribution, whether it is johnson -- professor gallagher: the real

fear is having the republicans in power, whether it is the former slaveholding states. professor varon: the radicals. it needs to be said that some of that fear of retribution that is , political gamesmanship. it is a way of printing them as extremists, but in fact northerners embrace grant's magnanimity to a very surprising degree because they believe it is a way of changing hearts and minds of inducing atonement and repentance on parts of these wrongheaded confederates. professor leonard: and because union was the goal all along -- for whites northerners anyway. professor gallagher: almost all northerners are white! the 1860 census tells us the population of the non-slaveholding states was 98.8% white. people talk about the white republic in mid-19th century.

if you are talking about the non-slaveholding states, it is a white republic. black american live in slaveholding states. professor varon: there is an abrasive magnanimity again, and the north occupying the moral high ground as a means to affect , change, but there are still people, joseph hofstetter, right in the federal government saying we cannot go this way. professor leonard: why don't we have broader reprisals after the civil war? i certainly think the assassination itself is a tremendous shock, and in some ways you think it would produce more of that, and it does sort of briefly, and in the streets of washington, thinks it will produce some vengeful, and there are others who are keen on vengeance, but i think it is also so terribly traumatic on top of everything. mr. holzer: in the end, they

cannot prove a wider can fiercely so in the end, it , becomes a ragtag bunch, and they symbolize what? no one is really certain. professor gallagher: and the very rapid trials and executions of the four conspirators i think took some of the edge, and then the hanging of henry workirz, but if the goal of the union is, as liz just said, for most white northerners, it works against that goal if you really pursue significant retribution, that makes it harder, not easier, to put things back together. professor leonard: and johnson pretty quickly, his tone changes, and the trial of the conspirators, he is already issuing proclamations that are actually very forgiving, and speaking about forgiveness and forbearance -- and my man, joseph holt, was not happy.

mr. holzer: but it is true -- professor gallagher: but it is true. [laughter] mr. holzer: these are not beads of sweat. professor varon: no beads of sweat. mr. holzer: there are at least two antislavery abolitionist who confide, one in a letter to his wife, there's something about lincoln's loss and johnson's arrival because it will make the radical reconstruction of the south easier. god has spoken, lincoln has done his work, and now it is time for us, whether that meant johnson would be weaker, easier to dominate, or whether johnson would be a stronger leader. professor gallagher: don't you think they sweat because they knew johnson was not as capable a person as lincoln? i mean, andrew johnson had never had a great reputation.

professor varon: yeah, and segue to a question that is so irresistible. i am not a fan of counterfactuals, but we are all asked all the time -- if lincoln had lived, would he have fared better than andrew johnson in the spirit of reconstruction in the postwar period? what do you all think of that? professor leonard: as gary said quietly, he would not have fared worse. [laughter] some have said kindergartners would have done better than andrew johnson. [laughter] but i think there is no question that lincoln would have done a better job. i think we can say that within the framework of understanding that i do not think we would appreciate lincoln or feel the way so many people feel about lincoln today had he had to live through that period. i have said in various contexts, except for the fact that he was murdered, he really got up

pretty easily. [laughter] reconstruction! mr. holzer: where is that quote? professor leonard: it came out of my mouth. professor gallagher: and there is the sound bite for this panel. [laughter] professor leonard: it is going viral. professor gallagher: it is being twittered. [laughter] even as we speak. professor varon: so what you think, would lincoln have fared better? mr. holzer: i think the infuriated members of congress as johnson did. his instinct was always to go slowly and from behind, as we call it today. i think the gains would have come more slowly but more surely and more permanently, perhaps. i do not know if the outcome would have been all that different. he would not have been impeached. he is too smart a politician to get congress that angry at him. but give him four years i think it might have resolved some issues -- this is totally speculative -- but might have

resolved some issues that did not get resolved until the 1960's. professor varon: wouldn't he have also come up against the realization that the mass of white southerners did not want wants to be dis-enthralled from the leadership of the lees and davises and so on. is that a hurdle he could have overcome through his brilliant skills at communication and -- professor leonard: i cannot help feeling -- of course we have no way of knowing -- but i cannot help feeling that he would have come to the place he did knowing what the war would mean and what peace would mean in terms of its necessarily transformative outcome. he has tied to the end of the slavery to union victory. he had reached that point, had begun to speak about black voting rights -- it is hard for me to imagine that he would have

put up with the resurgence or the desire on the part of confederates who had been defeated on the battlefield to achieve politically what they could not achieve, and that he would have fought against that in a way where is johnson sort of what easily, in my view, led into a kind of state where he so enjoyed the begging and pleading, please pardon me, can i have amnesty, of planters, and the planters and the leaders who formerly had such bitterness before, it's hard for me to imagine lincoln putting up with that. professor gallagher: the summer of 1865 would not have played out the way it did. i do not believe he would have put up with that. professor leonard: and i think he did move, he said himself lincoln, that he move from point to in terms of -- he had this long view in terms of what the end goal was. he did not always know how he

would get there, but he would go to the next point and an end point, and i think of that as to how he would approach reconstruction. mr. holzer: one of the in goals, aside from the glorious goals of enfranchisement and citizenship, one of his goals -- the political goal for lincoln was to create a permanent republican majority. professor gallagher: there has been a national party. mr. holzer: you make republicans competitive in mississippi city, south carolina, and you force it on the throats of white americans because then you have a permanent republican majority. he has got to be thinking about that. professor gallagher: the white north was not on board with in -- in franchising black men. a number of states voted it down, and it kept coming up. it came up 11 times and was voted down nine times. mr. holzer: new york in 1850. professor gallagher: yes, and lincoln is at the end of the curve at that at the and of the war, and andrew johnson would

have been happy if people never voted. there is a real difference between lincoln and johnson, apart from their respective skills. professor varon: and they fight over grant, right? they both want grant in their corner, they want to claim him as the victor of the war, for their interpretation of how things would go. grant will, himself, change his views. he will prove changeable the way lincoln acts, adapt the behavior and ideology to the evidence. he is not someone who at the start of the war is an abolitionist or in favor of suffrage, but he will come to embrace black suffrage. talk a little bit about grant and lee in this immediate postwar period. especially after lincoln's death, these are the two most prestigious men in the nation. what are their hopes for the peace, and what are their hopes for immediate aftermath of the war? professor gallagher: i will do lee.

lee is very pregnant at the end of the worthless of his basic stance is we tried his hardest we could, we failed, so now the victors set the term, and we follow the terms. in public, i think we behaved impeccably. he also counseled denial of fact -- do not look back, look forward. that is his public stance. his public stance is reunion and a kind of formal reconciliation. privately, he was extremely unhappy with what had happened. he hated that everything was changing in some ways in the former confederacy. but he had what i would call situational reconciliation. there is a public lee and a private lee. the public lee behaved as you would want the loser to behave coming out of appomattox. professor varon: and yet, he was a controversial figure in the north after the war. professor gallagher: oh, absolutely. professor varon: in the raw days after appomattox, a great deal

was read by the northern public and to everyone of his gestures for stuff you relatively lays low. i alluded to this, something that is political, so he is still someone who is very much feared and mistrusted in the north, is important. professor gallagher: but he became quite popular. lee's death, which is only five years later, a lot of the northern papers gave quite flattering obituaries for him. frederick douglass called them "nauseating flatteries." [laughter] he could not believe that the great rebel chieftain was being treated this way so quickly. professor varon: in a sense, the copperhead view of lee -- become perhaps from the start are willing to portray lee as grant's equal, and they see the overwhelming numbers of

resources as part of the defeat, in part because the democrats do not want lincoln to emerge from the war with a political mandate feeling that the victory was a political mandate. mr. holzer: do not rule out as one of the factors in his rehabilitation or acceptance the power of images. there are dozens and dozens of appomattox engravings and lithograph that appear. of course the grant images as well, more principally, but you cannot help but believe that lee was a resplendent-looking man, some showing surrendering his sword and an apple orchard inventions that were created . lee of course is importuned to pose outside his richmond home just a few days after appomattox, and those pagers viral -- the equivalent of going viral -- he is a man of -- who assumes an air of dignity, and i think that is appreciated.

that helped. professor gallagher: i think the perception was he was a good loser in much of the united states. mr. holzer: and a great-looking loser. [laughter] professor gallagher: a much better loser than jefferson davis was. professor varon: and grant gave an interview in may of 1856 that he believes lee has been behaving badly and has been grudging in his acceptance of defeat. it gets back to the point we made earlier that grant really resented the denigration of victory, the victory of overwhelming numbers and resources. he thought it was a fundamentally unfair, and at that lee was complicit in that denigration. professor gallagher: do not forget appomattox, lee said so wonderful to see you again, when we met in mexico, and he says "we have met?" >> i read one account that said beads of sweat broke out on

them. [laughter] professor varon: and elizabeth had mentioned earlier that johnson, andrew johnson, kind of turned on a dime and went from tough talk to this doling out, 100 pardons a day. you alluded to the psychological explanation that he enjoyed having these people, he believed they had lorded it over him and his kind before the war, had enjoyed him coming before him on bended knee. what else is there to it? do we have a sufficient explanation as to why johnson behaved the way he did? did he simply believe he was doing lincoln's bidding as he was magnanimous? professor leonard: it certainly said that, and perhaps he truly believed it. it is impossible to know what was in his mind, but i think he certainly said that was framework in which was operating

, that. either he was misleading himself and the public, or he completely was misunderstood, it is hard for me to imagine in december of 1865, that lincoln would have said we are done, it is complete, and welcomed newly elected former confederate leaders to congress. mr. holzer: meanwhile, you have grant, who is sort of the closest thing we have had to a president in waiting for four years. it is the assumption that he will follow this accident of the president, and he was part of the administration in waiting, release a president in waiting. professor gallagher: everybody thought that grant -- democrats and republicans -- but that grant would be a good candidate. everybody thought he would be a good candidate. professor varon: as we think about the end of the work, let's

talk about the army some and the demobilization of the army and the grand review. tell us, gary, maybe you can start, about what becomes of this massive army in the months after the war? professor gallagher: it is the united states pattern. there are one million men in the united states army in may of 1865. 80% of them are gone by the end of the year, and the army within another 18 months is down to about 55,000. which people at the time celebrated. it was vastly important to them to make the point that this had been an army of citizen soldiers, that deeply anti-military, taken out of great britain, we always like small standing armies. this was much remarked upon, including the grand review where 150,000 soldiers in the armies at potomac and sherman's armies paraded in washington that was one of the most frequent comments -- "these

are civilly soldiers, they will be back in civilian life very quickly." that is what is great about the republic people growth. they go to do their patriotic duty, and then they go home and they are not soldiers anymore. professor leonard: except for the black soldiers, who were overwhelmingly on occupation duty. professor gallagher: that is right. professor leonard: until about june 1867, i think. professor gallagher: and a lot of them and listed later, so the terms of enlistment lasted longer than those of the white soldiers. professor varon: and often doing difficult duty in the remote reaches of texas. professor leonard: people really could not believe that there were black men in uniform. professor gallagher: and a lot of the black men stay in the army because they could stay in the army. they had no black soldiers before -- professor leonard: and the y they go right into the indian wars. professor gallagher: right. professor varon: the image of

the grandview reminds us that americans are cellaring victory and mourning lincoln at the same time. and wondering about the peace and how to hold onto the peace that is right. let's talk about america mourning lincoln. let's talk about that process, and then let's turn to elizabeth's question about anxieties about the future. mr. holzer: well, clearly you have several threat of mass activity. the demobilization of soldiers and the federation of the soldiers, the intense pursuit of booth and davis, and as this is happening, the millions of people who gather in 11 cities in the north, retracing lincoln's inaugural journey north in reverse from washington state of west there had never , been anything like it. one million people looking at lincoln's remains, actually passing by his catafalque and looking at his face.

more than had ever seen any american president in life or death stop and usually disappointed at what they saw yet having this deeply, deeply emotional connection on the wings of religious holidays that had occurred a day and two days after his assassination, shot on good friday, lamented in passover services on saturday for the tiny population of america that was jewish, and then on sunday -- by the way, he was introduced as a modern moses who had led people to the promised land but had not got quite to see it. and then on sunday of course there is a resurrected martyr, christlike figure who had died for his country's sins. so the anticipation was unprecedented, yet there is a corollary thirst for vengeance and also true crime interest was happening.

professor leonard: that is right. there is a broad sweep. we end up with only eight people on trial, but there are many hundreds and part of this true crime. professor varon: so tell us how we get from the 300 to the eight, elizabeth. professor leonard: chronically you pretty much could have gone straight to the eight. [laughter] and they are all, i believe, in in custody by the 17th very quickly. but then there are others who maybe were not connected in some marginal way to one or the other of the eight. mr. holzer: a lot of conspirators after the fact were never charged. that was sort of surprising, but the idea was to do one manageable show trial, i guess. professor leonard: right although they end up having to do two. eluding. mr. holzer: in a civil trial which of course messes up the whole theory of swift justice and sure justice.

professor leonard: since we are talking about that, it is true that many people have suggested that had the original eight been tried in a civil trial, the results would have been different. i would say in the attitude that was present in washington in may and june of 1855, it would not have made a difference. it would have gone exactly the same way. there was a desperate desire for revenge against the act, and here they were. mr. holzer: mary may have peaked and execution but i agree with you that the civil result will have anything. professor varon: and what about jefferson davis? professor gallagher: we have a countdown clock with the gigantic numbers counting the way down. [laughter] professor gallagher: jefferson made his way self work, they

were in danville for a little while, through the carolinas, he was captured on may 10 near urbandale, georgia, and was taken to fort monroe as many of , you know, where he was kept in jail for two years. a manacle, early-onset and unequivocal message to society. he desperately wanted to be put on trial. he believed that a trial would vindicate him, and there is potential federal prosecutors thought about it, and in the end they decided not to do it. he had a really good defense lawyer from new york city, an irishman, incidentally, harold. [laughter] mr. holzer: who sweated profusely. [laughter] professor gallagher: he would have to be tried where the crime was committed, which they said was in richmond, and it was perhaps a chance he would not be convicted, which would be a problem because then the blood really would be on the hands of the people who had prosecuted the union war.

but he is there for two years, and he becomes a sort of -- he takes on the characteristic of a martyr to some degree. his reputation actually went up because of that. he sort of suffered for everybody, and so few people were jailed. professor varon: were there rumors that he was curiously clad? professor gallagher: yes, that he was in women's dress, and the cartoons in the north, yes -- there is a gender interpretation of his capture, too. mr. holzer: of course lincoln had been mocked when he had entered the presidency. and davis was mocked for being in disguise as he leaves his presidency. there is a need to treatat symmetry and laughter that helps relieve people in a way. professor gallagher: davis lived for a long time. professor varon: right, and wrote a very expensive memoir, which retroactively disputed that slavery had been a cause for the war.

what an excellent segue. we have only one minute left. any closing observations? mr. holzer: david said in his memoir he did not cheer when he heard the news of lincoln's assassination, but he did not regret. professor leonard: i think a significant, interesting little >> joseph holt was the secretary of war under buchanan when lincoln way is is brought in. for him to carry that memory into prosecuting these men, it shapes his view of what his job was. >> and has attorney general too. >> that is a great observation on which to end. we are going to resume at 10:00 promptly on the nose.

we encourage you to submit questions for the q&a is going to happen. thank you. [applause] >> we have gathered some wonderful questions. we have a representation of lots of different topics among these questions. we will pose the questions sometimes they will be directed at panelists. i am going to start here with the question, and that gets back to lincoln and the press. a question from the box asks was the pushback against lincoln's handling of editors shutting down newspapers and what was his biggest mistake in

dealing with the northern press? >> that is very good question. there was surprisingly little pushback from editors, authors of modern journals, we would have thought would have protested and raised the issue of the sanctity of the freedom of the press. henry of the "new york times" was the most influential journalist in the union. he talked about the limits of the press. one cannot -- i mention beads of sweat. [laughter] and yet -- oh, you are back. >> our clock wasn't working. all sarcasm is appreciated however. [laughter] chair holzer: i thought the clock stopped. so, surprisingly little pushback.

and from the democrats, there was always the fear that if you protested this new interpretation, you would fall victim to the punitive nature of the lincoln administration in dealing with what it regarded as seditious press. i think the second part of the question, lincoln's biggest mistake where journalism is concerned was probably trusting that horace would be a loyal man as henry raymond, the founder of the "new york times." he would drop the reservation in 1964, and not only supported anybody but lincoln for the republican nomination, but after years of supporting abolition, years of attacking all the things one would expect from horace greeley, he proved willing in the late summer of 1864, to actually sacrificed the proclamation for immediate peace.

and that is where grilli and lincoln separated. co-chair varon: can we take just a minute then have the perspective on the perspective of the press and could the -- in the confederacy? the davis do much? could he have done more? >> i am not filler with davis in the press, i'm afraid. chair holzer: there was just as much pushback in the confederacy as there was in the north. >> davis was hoping, however for a forest of support. you know? so it may not have been actual attacks on him. it was his policy and his personality. he was unpopular throughout the war.

>> stevens had papers that were organs of his critique of the davis the ministration. >> legislation eventually passed in the confederacy to limit the press us -- press' freedoms. >> -- they were very cool to davis throughout the war. -- cruel to davis throughout the war. i don't know about his impression of them, but certainly he has enemies in the press who were, as you are hinting, almost seditious in their criticism of davis. chair holzer: i do want to make one brief point -- it is not criticism of lincoln that the administration craps down on. it is criticism of enlistment, criticism of the draft.

that is what provokes the shutdown. co-chair varon: because those things danger the army, in lincoln's mind. chair holzer: and the constitution. >> this question is from the audience and it follows on a discussion of the continuing influence of the lost cause. it says, how is it that u.s. army forces are named after confederate generals? i would think fort bragg, fort hood, that is open to anyone on this panel. edward ayers it is very similar to what you are talking about -- it is naming major bases on the assumption that, i imagine although i have heard critical things about one of my favorite military figures.

nobody likes him with that exception. some of these bases are not considered very desirable places. but for the most part, you would say it is an honor to have a military-based -- military base named for you. >> there could be an ironic element to this, too, because fort bragg in north carolina and fort polk louisiana, those aren't exactly pallet of confederate issues. they could be considered some of the best fence the union had. [laughter] edward ayers: and they have been a but of jokes for anybody around the table. [laughter] >> thank you for exposing the shallowness. [laughter] [applause] co-chair varon: we talked a little bit about this team of punishment and the lincoln conspirators.

one of the questions has asked i think this is properly for elizabeth, what trout does henry worth occupy? and why is this man singled out in the way he is? what is he symbolic of? >> henry, for joseph holt, who prosecuted the conspirators -- well, i should back up and say at that conspiracy trial, henry was very present in the testimony and in the government's case against the conspirators because the government was trying to prove not just the local conspiracy against lincoln, but this much larger conspiracy and time to get assassination to all kinds of heinous acts on the part of the confederacy. andersonville and henry were part of that habit. so i think for hold, he did

certainly stumble in his efforts to hand the tail on jefferson davis. but henry was another target for him. and, in some earth, kind of the last cast of at least -- gasp of at least his ability to extract or to inflict punishment in the way that he felt punishment to be inflicted on confederate leaders. >> just a word -- they were into collation in the north. and aroused people as deeply as you can say the photographs, the newsreels that the soldiers took in the concentration caps on the 20th century. they were horrific. dr. elizabeth leonard: they were horrific, and i find it interesting that he was not a

native united states citizen. somehow, i feel that contributed to his vulnerability. he said after the eight were convicted and then the four were executed that the likelihood of another us-born white elite or even -- the likelihood of someone like that taking the kind of punishment that were took were pretty low. >> they could have prosecuted somebody, but -- who oversaw the current -- >> northerners felt that one of the things they resented most about the was his denial -- most aboutlee was his -- most about lee was his denial of what happened in the camps. a way of, again, trying to establish a broader complicity. >> i think we tend to forget the complicity. they were really in the crosshairs, not only with the

execution, but how important the propaganda pictures were. and the sensitivity of southerners to the accusations and implications they were at fault for mistreating prisoners. among the first and most specific answers -- the response to the charges of complicity and deliver it mistreatment of prisoners, that was the issue that was much more important now than it has been to us in our retrospective look at the war. >> and the charges that the north was just as bad. chair holzer: right. that they were just the same and the north could afford -- they had the resources, yet the death rate was the same. this counter narrative was, to

some degree, very accurate. >> this is from the audience. you consider the civil war to be driven by the feeling of a lost cause rather than a -- ? >> the way i am interpreting that question is that there is more confederate interest in the war today then union interest. maybe it is a product. we certainly see an interest in the civil war in the south and as someone who lives in indiana now, there is someone a difference between my student us -- students' interest in the work. but we have come to associate the civil war with the confederacy.

the symbols of the work, yes the united states flag with similar. and similar enough to the flag debt unless you look closely, it is hard to tell the difference. but the battle flag of the confederate stands out. and it has become a symbol of the work. sometimes it is easier for people to understand the confederate cause than the unit cause. >> and sometimes the confederate symbols are symbols of resistance to authority and the federal government and cultural domination and political correctness and all those kinds of things have sort of taken on a larger meeting. -- meaning. dr. caroline janney: and we like the story of the underdogs right? we like the story of the underdogs who are struggling and we can read so much into the confederate stories. and epic tales like "gone with the wind" certainly after that

charm and the romance of war. >> please. >> out just going to say, i think there is a resonance to the mythology -- well, the mythology around the confederacy with the revolutionary war, we just sort of a founding myth right? chair holzer: i think some of the northern interest is folded into a lincoln interest. but i think -- one of the problems in civil war memory was the movement in the early 20th century and onto the civil rights movement to reinterpret the emancipation proclamation. and perhaps be more critical of its limitations than celebratory of its revolutionary aspect. i think we have begun to come out of that interpretation with

the cisco tenniel of the proclamation and realizing its limitations more as tactical than as philosophical. i think that has would've helped create a more of a rainbow of appreciation of the war in the north. >> there are certain things that do bring pieces of the war that have been pushed aside, or at least not focused, back into the attention. i think americans, for the most part, didn't even know there were black soldiers in the civil war because they have been sort of airbrushed out of the picture. glory did a remarkable job of bringing that back into focus. and yield the things such as the monument in washington. it really had an impact. >> it also immobilized the african-american reenactment community. as everyone knows, reenactment