it is the same pattern that exists today if you look at marine corps dress uniforms. i have the same thing on my cap. three layers of braid for a major. these would have been done by hand. officers uniforms were privately purchased by officers, historically, so they would have been made by taylor's. >> who does yours? tyler: i don't remember the name of the guy who made this one but he did a really good job. >> you have played as you're playing a confederate major today. have you taken on other roles? tyler: i am with the fife and drum corps, i had came originally as a fiver. >> what got you hitch rested in living history to begin with? tyler: i've always been interested in history, material culture, and things from the past. i thought that it looked like fun and it combines my passion for material culture with getting to teach people about history.

>> how is this event organized? how do you know what to do and when? with the signing of the letters of surrender their at the mclean house, how do you know where to be? tyler: the simple answer is you either get told or you have some sort of schedule that you need to follow. having an accurate timepiece is really important out here. make sure that your watch is wound and that you know where you are going. >> meaning that your act -- actual watch winds? tyler: yes, it winds by key. >> bringing it out now, other than the physical things how do you maintain the mental sort of mindset of being in 1865? tyler: especially if i'm answering the questions of people i'm not doing what's

called first person. i'm not pretending like i'm in 1865. it's a lot easier to relate to people if you're not attending like -- what is this microphone? it's a lot easier to answer questions. but while were in the field one of the things that keeps you sane is to remember that it was done in the past and if that they could do it, you could do it, too. just camping out and everything, this is why we came out here. if you get rained on, that's just part of the deal. >> what brought you out into doing these kinds of events to begin with? tyler: i wanted to start as a musician. i taught myself how to play fife and i joined the fife and drum corps. i've come out for about 14 years now, it's on most like a family. we just go everywhere as a group. >> have you been here before? >> i have not been to the park before, no. >> what do you think the

takeaway is? what is the lesson of appomattox? tyler: a lot of people focus on what ended here today. that this was the last night or the last day of the confederacy. it is not so much about what is ending as what is beginning. this is a new birth for freedom in the united states. a day of unification. and it really is the true beginning of the civil rights and that leads us all the way to the present day. they made a move today that would change american history forever. and profoundly change the lives of millions in this country. it is the 150th anniversary of the surrender at appomattox. we are at the appomattox court house national historical park we will talk to the man u may have seen just a few moments ago, david blight, the author of a number of books -- including race and union in the civil war. we are going to obviously give

you a chance to join the conversation and offer your comments -- here's how to do that -- if you are in the eastern or central time zones, the numbers 202 -- 798 -- 8900. host: you have written about the end of appomattox as being the beginning of a new calendar of time for freed slaves. what does that mean to them? >> there were actually some african-american leaders in the wake of the civil war that even suggested 1865 is the beginning of a new calendar. they did not literally invent a new calendar, but it meant that life had begun a new. that a new history had begun. in some cases, actually, they viewed it in biblical terms.

that somehow god in the old testament tradition had answered history and torn up jerusalem torn up peoples government. the people's society, destroyed it, it had to be made a new. emancipation was viewed as that kind of turning point. it meant that black folks now at least had an opportunity. they did not know where it was going but they had an opportunity to live in a new history. that is what i meant in the new book. to some people appomattox represented not just a marker in time, but the kind of beginning of a new historical time itself. host: this covers your recent article entitled "the civil war isn't over." and capsule lies that for us, if you could. dr. blight: the shooting war

ended here, the armies surrendered and the war did indeed decisively end slavery and save the union. but the great issues for how you would transform the emancipation of 4 million people into some kind of civil and political liberty -- how you would reunite north and south -- readmit 11 former confederate states back into the union -- how you would form a new union or a new constitution had yet to be determined. we had been living out to broad kinds of legacies ever since. legacies about race, the quality before law and the legacy of states rights and federalism that are today all over our political culture. both of these are still at the heart and center of what we debate in this country. host: you talk about people wanting the civil war to be done

with. what do you mean by that? dr. blight: it is the most divisive and bloody event in our history. it represents the biggest dilemmas in our history. representing the fact that we are the nation that owned slaves . the people and then the nation that owned slaves for two and a half centuries. representing the fact that we had the most violent emancipation in all of the 20 some odd nations and empires that freed the slaves between the late 18th century and 19 century. it's also the largest bloodletting in our history. we have never experienced loss on this scale at any other time. that is all because of a set of historical nightmares that people would like to put to rest . they would like to see a piece of this landscape that is so beautiful as a way that their history ought to be instead of, you know, industry full of vexing problems that are left over from an event that ended here.

host: david blight is the director of the study for slavery resistance and abolition . your calls momentarily, one quick question about reconstruction -- how well do you think it is taught in american high schools and colleges? dr. blight: much better now than when i was in school. i did not learn much at all about it. but it is still that hole in american history. that decade, that decade and a half that most people would just as soon slip past and get through. it's so vexing and conflicted full of skulduggery and corruption. it is especially full of racial violence. the most widespread use of terror and political violence in our history. it is the time where the united states lurched ahead with a tremendous experiment in racial democracy. but that experiment in the 13,

14th, 15th amendment, was in effect if heeded by the rising democratic party in the south and what the south came to call southern redemption. reconstruction was overthrown and in some ways actually defeated. it is not a heroic time. it is not as attractive if what you want from history is the story of your triumph. and your pleasure. it is a story full of a kind of political animosity and conflict almost like no other time we have ever had. host: we have several calls waiting period phil, good afternoon. caller: i was going to ask you -- i know that lee declined the command of the union army or getting out of the war. did he ever express regret over

that? maybe save himself a lot of carnage? suffering? did lee and grant have a relationship before the war? dr. blight: they had vague memories of meeting during the mexican war, but they were of different ranks and ages, as you probably know. did lee ever experience regret over taking command of the confederate forces? not that i know of, although i am not a lee biographer. there are those out there who would know those details. to my knowledge, no, he did not. i think that what you did have was a man who when he made that choice but you had was a fierce confederate nationalists.

he fought to the bitter end. he made the important decision not to before these troops. that is important. caller: hello, professor. thank you for dedicating your career to this wonderful topic. i know that you have looked at the african-american experience before and after the civil war. basically at the end of the civil war and the experiences that african-americans have had up through today what of the biggest factors? dr. blight: that is viewed

question. the 14th amendment is where you have to start, that magnificent clause about equality before the law. first of all, you would not have it under which all of us live. that is the irrelevant holds us together, legally. you would not have that without the emancipation of 4 million slaves? 10,000 definitions from 10,000 different interests. it is a long story with many stops along the way. the second greatest of the civil rights movement 100 years later. the dream metaphor in the martin luther king speech does not come

until the last three minutes. the first 14 minutes are all about the centennial of emancipation and the civil war. he repeated over and over repeats the refrain, in fact that the negro is not free. and they were not. segregation meant that people were not free. now, we change the constitution again fundamentally. it reshaped our relationship to rights movements, leaving aside the collection of police violence. the voting rights act is once again back on the table and under attack and the key provision of that voting rights act was stricken out in a 54 vote two years ago, meaning that

the federal justice department does not have authority over judging what those former segregated state do with voting rights. all the unique to know about why we are in this dilemma at the moment is to look at what many states did, not just in the south, but what many states did in the state legislatures controlled by republican majorities right after the supreme court brought down that decision. they immediately passed some kind of voter id laws which ultimately are designed in one way or another to suppress the votes of black people, brown people, older people, younger people, the people who tend not to vote for the same persuasion as those who pass those laws. so history is never over. every time we think we have turned a great corner in race and race relations, which we did

in the reelection of barack obama and president obama every time there is a revolution there is a counterrevolution and the resistive to president obama for better or worse in whatever side of that issue people might the on -- is a kind of counterrevolution. it's a push back against his conception of government, him personally his conception of how to use federal power. it never ends. it's never over. host: i will take this opportunity to remind our american history tv viewers that are coverage of selma and those events are available at c-span.org/history letting you know about the coverage coming up this week. a lot of coverage of the suspects and tenure of the

assassination of abraham lincoln. let's go to the site of the lee mansion in arlington -- virginia. larry, thanks for waiting. go ahead. caller: thank you to the national park service and everyone who is being lecturers for this. my question for mr. blight is -- how did the confederate army and union armies differ in the way that they treated the colored troops that were in their care? how are they treated after the war that may have been influenced by everybody coming back together? thank you. dr. blight: i think you asked how african troops were treated by both armies. well, the fundamental difference was that the black troops in the

union army, whether they were state units or most of them were colored troops unit, they were part of the union army. 5000 were here with grant's army. part of that surrender there were here today. were they always treat? absolutely not. especially in the first year of the recruitment, in 1864 and well into 1863 they were never allowed commissioned officers status. jefferson davis announced that they would be enslaved.

somewhere, not a not -- soldiers captured were at risk of execution. under the law against insurrection they were risking being re-and slaved. it was not just black soldiers that face this. when his army invaded pennsylvania in the gettysburg campaign they sent back several score people into virginia trying to re-enslave them into the labor force of virginia. by and large, black folk in uniform or not were treated as part of the enslaved population by the confederate army. by the very end of the war as many out there will know, in desperation the confederacy in the congress of to president davis decided that perhaps they

would try to recruit some former slaves into the confederate army and they did indeed recruit one small unit in richmond by late march in 1865. the idea was to do what many societies had done without -- throughout history, which was to arms slaves and put them in the army. which would have violated the very reason of the confederacy to exist. vast numbers of white southerners oppose that. but it actually was enacted by the confederate congress and adopted by jefferson davis. had this war gone on to the summer of 1865 we would have probably seen some, at least small black units in the confederate army. those men, the way the law existed, were going to be given their freedom if they served in the confederate forces. basically a measure of how desperate the confederate army

had become. host: david blight is with us live here on "american history tv." caller: hello, i wish i could be there myself. thank you for being there today. i have been watching these events on c-span for the past four years. i have noticed that the majority of the participants and the attendees are middle-aged to elderly like google. i can say that because i am one. i wondered, with the makeup of the country changing and supposedly the white race becoming a minority in the country by 50 years from now will these events, do you think that these well read bird -- will be well -- as well remembered then as they are now? dr. blight: you raise a very

interesting problem. why don't african-americans come to civil war sites? first of all, last night there were hundreds, if not 1000 or more african-americans out here. an extraordinary performance here on the main stage behind me. they held a mock symbolic burial of a former slave woman named hannah reynolds who was killed here on the morning of april 9. no one ever knew where she was buried. they do her name and who her master was, her owner and the african-american community of appomattox county got together with the national parks service and planned for months this amazing performance that was a living history burial, a funeral for hannah reynolds. the choirs were terrific. they same -- they sang

spirituals. without any accompaniment. i was surprised stunned, and please define hundreds and hundreds of black folks. i have never seen that many of the civil war site. today there are almost none. that is a very very old saga. historic. it goes back to the years when civil war sites -- and this is changing by the national parks service, they have begun to make great strides -- but it used to be seen as essentially a place where you saw the story of the blue in the grade. you saw the story of an. a site-specific story of battle and combat that you did not encounter anything about the war being what it is about. for the last 20 years at least the national parks service in conjunction with the organization of american historians and other groups have been working together to brought

in interpretive programs and change the films that are shown at interpretation centers, to change the programming. last night, as i said in my former -- formal speech, it was one of the most remarkable things i have ever witnessed at a national parks site. these should be places that people come to understand why the civil war happened and what the short and long-term consequences were. the challenge, now, is to get people of all backgrounds to come. one other thing if you look at historical tourism in this country, african-americans go intros to civil rights sites across the south. civil rights museums and crossroads. civil rights two hours are all over the place. that is a triumphal story that black people led. the civil war is still not quite seen that

the civil war is not quite seen that way. black leadership was pivotal in bringing about emancipation in the midst of the war. the civil war is a great and pivotal story of african-american history. it can't quite get the same traction as the more recent civil rights movement gets because that is a much more recent memory. host: our c-span cameras have been covering a number of events . we did not cover that event last night. it is perhaps something you will be able to look for on the appomattox website. they may have some photos if not video of last night's program. live coverage on american history tv, as we see soldiers beginning to walk by on the richmond-lynchburg road. what was the long-term physical and mental and societal a fact

of the injuries, mental and physical, by soldiers? what was the impact will be on the civil war? david: the impact on soldiers was absolutely profound and on a scale of almost no other war we experienced. there were hundreds of thousands of civil war veterans on both sides. thousands came out of this war with what today we would call posttraumatic stress, combat fatigue. there are recent books out on that. what a my former students brian jordan has a book called "marching home," which is a withering story of union veterans and what they experienced in terms of sickness and disease and alcoholism and the inability to get jobs. the estimate is, in the union army alone, among union veterans alone, there were 30,000 amputees that lived out their

lives in one way or another. these men could not get jobs. this was in the 19 century. the united states had nothing resembling social security veterans associations. there was no health care. they eventually did have pensions. indeed, federal pensions to union soldiers was a kind of governmental revolution such that by 1890, one third of the entire federal budget of the united states was payments of pensions to union veterans. that story, especially of guys who survived prison camps, who survived multiple years in the army who encountered all kinds of diseases, that story has only recently been researched by

historians. it has been waiting to be done. that war left a terrible set of scars on hundreds of thousands of veterans. it is also true that these veterans organizations were important fraternal organizations. veterans became an important voting block in both the south and north. they were also a political force. host: we are seeing the sights and sounds of soldiers beginning to stack their arms, which would have happened 150 years ago today here at appomattox courthouse. we will go next to eagle point washington. caller: it is eagle point oregon. host: diane, i'm sorry. i had that incorrect.

caller: i have a little bit of background and then a question for mr. blight. i was born in oregon, raised in oregon. i lived in charleston, south carolina and atlanta, georgia for 20 years respectively. i am a person that did not understand the civil war when i was growing up. it was glossed over in our education. it didn't really mean much to me when i lived in georgia and south carolina. i caught the civil war fever terribly. when they raise the hundley, it was just -- i now have a closet full of memorabilia and a collection and maps and pictures

of people. the people that i am around now my family and my friends that i've lived with for years, they gloss over it. they want to hurry by my office. they don't want to talk about it. they don't want to look at the picture. they view me as an oddity. i read so much about it, i started getting into autobiographies by northrop and frederick douglass and mary chestnut. it is a wound that has not healed in the united states. you talk about the park service. we need to do something here out on the west coast. there's not very much. it is like the relative you don't want to talk about. i would like your comments on that. host: thanks, diane. david: i'm dying to ask you -- how do you explain yourself to

all the people around you? you don't have to. that's ok. [laughter] the war was and thought out west. however, a couple of years ago during the sesquicentennial, i did a series of lectures in the northwest, in portland in tacoma washington, and i was stunned how much interest there actually was. a lot of people like you, in other words are out in the northwest region. interestingly enough, part of went -- what went on at these conferences were papers and stories about the towns that were settled out there in the wake of the war in the late 19th century. there were whole towns settled by x confederates in oregon or in washington. i was surprised. why are they having a civil war conference in tacoma? i was given a lesson.