buchanan, when lincoln is broad and carefully into washington, carefully and safely, and for him to carry that memory into prosecuting you know, it shapes his view of what his job was. mr. holzer: and the attorney general must have developed an interesting perspective there, too. professor varon: that is a great observation on which to end this morning's panel. i want to remind everyone we will resume probably at 10:15 on the nose, and we encourage you to submit questions for the q&a that is going to happen after panel number two so thank you all very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and ac is ""american

history tv" on c-span3. >> -- among these questions, we will post a question. sometimes, they will be directed at a specific panelist, but all the panelists are welcome to give their two cents worth. 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 and and covertly, 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 since they became popular in the one 25th. in the 1980's and since, that despite the overwhelming numbers and resources, the reality was quite the opposite. it was 10 to one confederate to union actors in reenactments. the head ask