jane in albertson, new york. jane, are you there? >> caller: yes i am. hi. i wantednted to extend my gratitude to these gentlemen portraying lee and grant. i think it's just an awesome and they are be a l performing a greatot service to the nation. i'm aware this has got to be a lot of effort a lot of studying, a lot of financial cost on their tudepart and it's really i just wanted to extend thank gratitude to the yogentlemen. that's a wonderful service and they are doing an awesome job. thank you, gentlemen thank you very much. >> thank you. tha >> thank you. >> how far in advance did you know you'd be here for these t events on the 150th? >> i knew three years ago coming up here with the group, lincoln's generals, i was portraying grant and my first trip up here three years ago, the park service indicated to mehe grant they wanted me to be the grant for the 150th. ide

>> ia knew i would be here last august. i thought last april when i came up to meet everyone, plus, the park service meet me. what would you say i had a year to prepare? >> about. i >> if you'd ask me a year and a half ago if i'd be here, i would never imagine such an honor. >> it's -- this is sort of a highlight for events beyond this. what diefo you have on tap? >> i will probably do reenacting still. >> i yes.s as i >> do living history where i can, and i've been requested at various places as i know general grant has to talk about the war. to present myself as lee, and that's what i plan on doing. conti >> i plan on continuing to th portray general grant because i have no political ambitions at this time. ultimately, actually, very soon,

i'll portray general grant -- president grant as well as general grant. >> what events? >> living history events like this reenactments a lot of educational, professional leadership organizations such what h as that, people want to know how grant did what he did, how president grant did what he did. >> grant's memoirs became a best seller as he died after his presidency. >> yes. i never read them, i finished ge them and died three days later. i understand they are good. >> general lee did you write i as your own stuff?keers fo >>r i did not write memoirs.i only l i asked various officers for paperwork, but i understand i only live five years after the eft on t war. >> let's see if we have one more caller on the air. somebody there? go ahead. hello, go ahead, you're on the air, go ahead. >> caller: yes. i would like to know is i read

that for you general lee, that you took it very, very bad when ho you lost the war. how did you cope and what did you do after the war? what did you do to, like, cope from the loss of the war?id was >> the first thing i did was get with my family in richmond and took some time of seclusion with the family.we l we leftef richmond to a friend's farm, which was further away ar awa from a lot of people who wanted lly to come to the house and pay respects to me and i've basically put my hands in the arms of god and said show me what to do next. >> i was in washington, and in august of 1866th i was appointed

general, they created the rank gener general of the army, and i got my fourth star, i was the fourthty general of the army and i was general in chief until the republican party approached me after appndrew johnson's term was nearing an endhe p and requested i run. i did not want to run, but i felt that the party that elected president lincoln had come to mepresid and asked me and i should answer the call, so i ran for the presidency. >> general grantl portrayed by curt fields, general robert e. lee portrayed by robert jesse. thank you for joining us and being with the viewers as well. >> thank you. >> our special programming continues with a look at president lincoln's

assassination which took place 150 years ago. we'll show coverage of an event that took place recently from ford's theater and nearby peterson house where president lincoln was taken after being shot by actor john wilkes booth on in 1865. >> on our next "washington journal," we'll talk to dennis kelleher talking about banking investigations and regulations seven years after the wall street crisis. then former indiana senator lugar discusses bipartisanship in congress and his work at the lugar center. later, a discussion with weicshbaum on efforts to change police procedures around the country. we'll take your phone calls facebook comments and tweets.

this summer,booktv will cover book festivals. this weekend live in book expo america in new york city. in the beginning of june, we're live for the chicago tribune writer's row lit fest including our three hour live in-depth program and your phone calls. near the end of june, the roosevelt reading festival. in the middle of july live at the harlem book fair the nation's flag ship african-american literary event with author interviews and panel discussions, and at the beginning of september, live from the nation's capitol for the nation's festival. that's a few of the events this summer on c-span's booktv. the quest for flight and

wilbur's hockey accident that changed the course of history. >> it's who hit him knocking out his upper teeth when he was 18, and sent him into a spell of depression and self-imposed seclusion in his house for three years. he was not ail to go to college which he planned to do. he wanted to go to yale. instead, he stayed at home, seldom went out at all, reading and providing himself with a liberal arts education the kind most dream of having all on his own, with the help of his father and the local public library. it swerved the path of his life in a way that no one had any way of anticipating. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a.

next we return for remarks on his legacy and civil war's aftermath with historians elizabeth darren and david bright who gave a keynote address at the congressmen ration. first, a brief interlude from these actors at the ceremony. this runs two hours and 10 minutes. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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live from the national historical park in virginia here c-spa on american history tv on c-span3. on the 150th anniversary of this surrender, seeing some of the sites of the living historians reenactors, and the stacking making their way to the stacking of the arms, and here on american history tv, we're a joined live by elizabeth barren, th author of a number of books, including her most recent, victory victory, defeat and freedom at the end of the civil war. we want to invite callers, viewers to join in the conversation too. for those of you in the eastern and central time zones and mountain and pacific, and tweet us at cspanhistory and on facebook at

facebook.com/cspanhistory. thank you for joining us.est >> a pleasure to be here the best place to be. >> we ask this of general grantrant h curt fields portraying general t grant. how many daysan in advance did he formulate the plan? what was the thinking ahead of these days? >> grant has a mandate from l addres lincoln. he knows what he wants . lincoln said famously in the second inaugural address lehe wanted a piece of malice for hose s all. he was a soft piece. lincoln's goal is for aou peace swiftl that will bring the southern brethren into the union as swiftly as possible. grant knows that his -- that that's the spirit lincoln intends. grant also knows that his brief n is t as a military man is to effect the surrender of lee's army, but will the heavy fraught questions ty whether the confederates will again vote have office have

property that was taken restored to them, those questions are ' beyond grant's jurisdiction and outside his brief. those will be dealt with by civil authorities, by politicians, congressmen back in washington, d.c. grant's terms to lead here surrender by patrol. this is a military intervention, grant's leniency in this hour protects the lives of lee' men, but does not resolve political questions. grant hopes at this moment that in those political questions will be resolved in a spirit of charity lincoln laid out in the second address. >> we see a lot of actors here today. how did the confederate troops view their yankee victors?rn how did troops view their southern counterparts? >> well, it's tempting to think of this aspt a moment of healing,

forgiving, and forgetting, but there's bitterness and distrust as one that imagines after a war that cost 700,000 lives. grant's terms says to the confederates, free to go home provided you obey the laws where th you reside, and each con federal is given a pass that vows to these terms. confederatesdiat are glad about it, but there's disagreement on what it meant. lee's size, that was an emblem of the northeastesig moral superiority, righteousness of the union's cause designed to ns of effect the repentness and atonement of the confederate soldiers for the sins of confederacy and slavery. to confederate soldiers did not believe there were sins to atone. they interpreted this and leniency as a form of courage to

them. the images armies had of each other were images shot through with stereotypes, images that nd had been b stoked by the bitterness and brutality of the war, the confederatesy saw the brute yankee army as an army that tory h broughtas to their brute force. he says to his troops yankee victory was won of overwhelming lings numbers and resources. and confederates saw the yankee army c of mercenaries, hogs, and northern industrial machine, not a favorable light in other words. yankees saw the common soldiers ocracy as. men who had in effect been dukes of a slave holding aristocracy. they have to grapple with the differences as they encounter pro

each other. >> there's a very prominent presence here in 2015 and in 1865. >> yes. they are a vital part of all of this. regimens of the usrtc are here when lee tries to breakthrough the traps laid and foiling lee's plan andfo linking up in north carolina with joe's army. for troops in the army that ent of participation in the campaign looms large as a great moment of pride and earnings of the rightsumber to ses session. >> we have a numplg calls r guest. waiting. a history professor at the university of virginia and s go t joining us here to talk about this let's go to sid in denver. sid, are you there? >> yes.

thank you, cnn, for the great the p program. my question, and i'm glad you alluded to the presence of olve african-american unions th soldiers, my question involves the deployment of the african-american soldiers in virginia as occupation troops and maybe you could shed some light on the -- like in winchester, virginia i know g that african-american troops were there to occupy, as so occupying forces and could you a st shed someor light and relevant insight, maybe a story to what troops that was like? >> african-american troops are among those union soldiers who are occupation forces in locations around the south. there is some he hassitancy about using them in this capacity in ri the unioncan- because they understand that symbolically the

presence of african-american troops in blue uniforms will be something that will provoke bitterness on the part of ex-confederates, so we will see that very quickly in the early days of reconstruction, confederates will begin to weave a very potent myth about union ave an occupation and about its harshness and they will begin to weave an argument that the hange union's effort to bring change to the south, political change orts a and socialre change, that those efforts to bring change are in at some sense a breaking of a covenant or compact made here.ndpa' in essence, grant's terms can be read as a plea to the south. we don't want to punish you further, but we want you to change. white southerners, demand exconfederates, those opposed to social change will treatni demands

for change as a social punishment in that they tha contravene the spirit of unanimity. what's important to take away here is that grant's terms the surrender scene, stacking of endin arms, all theg, things dramatized here over the past few days are the pr an ending. they sound the confederacy defeat of lee's army, this that sounds the indpeps, but everything that transpires here is also a beginning point a beginning of bitter debates about reconstruction and surrender seen and terms the presence of african-american troops and questionsth whatei their continued role in the life of the nation and military occupation will be.they all of these questions are fraught, and this is a touch stone for the debates in which the caller and controversy amer allude. >> next to wyoming. gina? >> caller: yes hello.o

nice to be able to talk to you, from a ms. elizabeth. to i'm from alabama, and i moved to wyoming. well, naturally, i'm teased out here about my accent, the civil no war, how we lost et cetera but i have a little story.migh it's not a question but a th little -- i guess you call it on the lighter side, the true story of the surrender, and i tell them, i told them that day when the two generals met, general grant was mighty and lee showed up in a new suit, ceremony . sword, et cetera, and grant asked general lee, may i see see th your sword? so general lee most graciously rren let hidem see the sword and grant took it as surrender. that's the true story of what we call the surrender.ur were say, no the south did not

surrender. >> thanks for sharing.ies co >> there are many stories connected with the surrender that -- don't stand up to ed gra scrutiny, needless to say and hem. the idea that lee offered grant the sword and grant refused to take it is one of them, be you alluded to the appearance of the two men grant dishevelled muddy frock coat lee dressed in a fine draeszed eddressed uniform. the people are presence in the e mcclain house and accounts of the surrender read a lot into the appearance of those two men, symbolic of the societies they had mol represented. granto represented the hard scrabble farmers and wage earners, and union men were the proud of the dishevelled

appearance. southerners, confederates, seen proud lee as representative of the planter elite proud of lee's appearance, and every detail, the setting here was highly symbolic and americans read a great deal into the details. >> was it after the fact? >> this was immediately. this is something to appreciate. news travels from this place by telegraph by 11:00 p.m. on april 9. in that evening, new yorkers he med have gotten word of the surrender. new york, the media capital of the country, of the northsemi then as it is now and word spreads es, wo throughout the north and in some southern places, word travels less quickly. communications and the newspaper business were in shambles in the south, and places in the deep re

south, they did not hear until late april, and in texas they did not hear until may. the minute details of the exchange of letters between the two men, details of the t terms to which they agree, details of lee's farewell address lee ere dr tells of their appearance, as soon as those details hit the papers, they are analyzed, and as we say in a moderate media, the words were spun. he said to the starving there exhausted troops, you lost because of overwhelming number of resources no shame in defeat. that farewell speech in eyes of the northern press that's a t, it' political statement, as one diers. abolitionist put it, that address is a slap in the face to loyal union soldiers, how dare he say that. >> ronny in washington, d.c. >> caller: yes, thank you so much for your work on this, and, in fact, i have it before me,

and i want to tell the audience ou that in your chapter on defeating the liberation, you give more coverage, nice ion of coverage of the u.s. colored troops and reaction of the former slaves people who were enslaved right there. where a >> that's right. >> i wanted to ask you today to talk about where are the u.s. his colored troops today?ond i don't see them there and this the is my second time watching the program. where are they represented?repres where are the people represented? i just don't see that today, and, of course you talk about william harrison who says he was with grant, you know former owner slave that had followed his owner as a body servant. could you please talk more about the role that the u.s. colored troops people had there, and why we don't see them there today?

thank you. >> absolutely. it's a fascinating story.this c there have been in the course of this commemoration here at the park, there's been a great deal of acknowledgement about this piece of the story, but there's ded more to be saidto t as the caller suggested. let me say this, i alluded to the role of the united states' bers o colorf troops here as liberators, as members of the victorious but af unionri army, but african-americans here in this section of virginia and throughout the south regarded april 9, 1865 as a general day of liberation and this is one of the things that i found in the course of the research thatsu surprised me most, that african-american communities not just in virginia, but chicago, across the country, ary of celebrated u yearly that anniversary really until world war i era. what were they celebrating? they celebrated the fact that in the this war, freedom followed the cessfu union army. where the union army was successful, freedom could oln issu materialize. where the union army was unsuccessful, freedom remained

elusive. lincoln issued his famous prok proclamation in 1863, but until then, freedom was not grasped by many in the south, and so the defeat of lee's army again, so potent a symbol, and in the minds of the african-americans, of slavery, the racial superior superiority, and all it stood s here a for, the army looms large as t invo freedom day. there are two stories here that involve african-americans both liberators and liberated here, and that makes this is very very powerful symbol.ver >> just to let the caller know, our cameras a are all over. we have colored troops here as slave well as reenactors of the freed slaves here. be able a lot of sooigts and sounds from

the historical park.ab we hope to be able to see them as well. >> well, and the color is right to know this is a very important subject with a great deal to learn. >> let's go to linda in florida. >> caller: yes, first of all, c-span thank you so much, and i saw elizabeth, y if i may call you that, please. i bought your book at the ds to ge lecture. i have no question. i have a comment. >> sure. >> caller: the book, everyone y needs to get it. whatever your interest is or if you're watching now, obviously, you're interested in the civil he civ war. i had the honorr. of going there.k and i had the honor of reading your book and it is the best book ever written about this moment in time, and i thank you so much on y for what you did and the time emba and sacrifice of your family i'm sure, and i don't want to ally embarrass you, but the reason i i read it initially was not only cenden from your lecture, but i am a w direct line descendant my

great, great grandfather was with the georgia 20th and he was there this day 150 years ago. he made his way back to georgia,al andon he became a farmer alongside former slaves. -- wh yourat book represents what happened and gives the true e, we storyal regardless of the person. every single person was involved in this and the great country. >> great comment. i want to pick up on one thing you said, and that's is, for me, what i want readers to take away. that's the importance of the service in this commemoration and