good morning again, i am peter carmichael. i am a member of the history department and the director of the civil war institute and it is my pleasure to introduce lesley gordon. she started her academic career at the college of william and mary ann went on to the university of georgia where she studied. she completed her dissertation

on general george pickett which became a book which is a model biography, published by the university of north carolina. and the inspiration for all of this of course begins right here at the civil war institute in 1983. she was one of the high school scholarship recipients that came here. one of many who was gone on to have academic careers. as you all know we have a strong contingent of high school scholarship award winners this summer as well. she now teaches at the university of akron undergraduate as well as graduate students. for a very long time she was the editor of the journal of civil war history and i believe her tenure is coming to a close. she just published a book she has been working on for eight to 10 years or less. she is not the kind of person who strays away from archives.

all you have to do is look at bibliographies and you will not see manuscripts cited. lesley goes right into the archival mines and things. the result -- digs. the result is an incredible book entitled "a broken regiment: the 16th civil war." i should add that she is a native of connecticut. please give her a warm cwi welcome. [applause] lesley gordon: thank you very much. i so appreciate that introduction. i am going to make a slight correction to what you said. when i came in 1983 there was no

civil war scholarship program. my parents -- i need to tell you this because they paid for me to come. it is a wonderful thing to see so many high school students here. that was my graduation gift from my parents. i became obsessed with the civil war thanks to a high school teacher. my 10th grade teacher. and what better graduation present them to come here? -- then to come here? it is wonderful to be back here. i was here in the 90's a couple of times talking about wives of generals. a couple of you might remember that, i came the long straight year. were any of you here for that? awesome. i talked about helen long street. today i am going to talk to you about this new book but particularly i am going to focus

on the theme of 1865 to focus on the institute fame. -- theme. to give you a different perspective from what you have been hearing about from the speakers, you have been hearing a lot and importantly though from the perspective of leaders and policymakers, people like grant. lee. you heard about appomattox. i want to talk about the common soldier. i want to talk about men that some of you do not know anything about. i did not know when i started this project, it was in the making for nearly 20 years. which i am not proud of. [laughter] lesley gordon: what i want to take you to their perspective. etiquette think it will give us a fresh perspective on the conflict. -- i think it will give you a

fresh perspective on the conflict. we take it for granted that in 1865 it is all over and greg downs reminded us that it was not over from a policy from the soldiers' perspective that were experiencing the war firsthand, they desperately wanted fighting to end. things were not so simple. when we look at the war through the eyes of men like the 16th, it complicates things in many ways. there is so much going on in 1865. there's a succession of many monumental events. there is the assassination of lincoln. we're going to have chairman accepting the -- sherman accepting the surrender. later in the year comes at the 13th amendment.

millions of people experiencing them things themselves. they do not have all these years to look back to see the meaning. that's what i want to try to do today. this unit, let me give you some background about them. tries to look at a regiment, about 1000 men. look at broad issues, soldiers' motivations to fight courage and cowardice, ties between the battlefront and the homefront. the process of public memory. this unit was raised in the summer 1862. they had very high expectations for their future. they recall, as you see from

this quote from the "hartford daily times," raised from hartford county, "the best class of volunteers." people thought of them as representatives of the best. this photograph shows one of the companies close to the hometown where i grew up, east granby, connecticut. i think you can see in their faces. this is taken very early. no doubt in camp where they were being trained or at least on paper being trained. they did not learn very much about soldiering the first couple weeks of the war. that sense of idealism and youth. faces i really represent -- fac es that represent a familiarity

of these men. many were family, peers with one another. in this photograph, there are cousins. they came from small towns. they become known as the hartford regiment. this is second lieutenant bernard blakeslee, who wrote the only published regimental history of the unit. he wrote that they were representative of "some of the oldest and best families." when they are raised in the summer of 1862 there's all this talk they are going to go to war and perform heroically and come home with battle honors. within their ranks, you are going to find representatives of

the state, businessmen, teachers -- about a third are farmers. immigrants, about 13% were immigrants. the average age was 25. that is about the average age of all civil war soldiers. there are democrats, republicans. they truly are representative of their county and their region. they don't really stand out from any other unit -- new england or northern unit. they do not seem to be stamped that they would behave any differently. so they leave hartford in late august of 1862. where do they go? and tina -- antietam.

within three weeks of their mustering in, they are thrown into battle. i have many diaries they write home and confess the shock and realization that they would actually go into battle. many could not believe that within those three weeks they would actually face combat. they participate, they are in burnside's 9th corps. late in the day september 17 they take the brunt of hill's arrival your independent -- they panic, they break. i take the title of my book from the description by a rhode island kernel talking about his own men. he talked about the 16th connecticut. he called them a broken regiment. 25% casualties at antietam. of 940 who participated,t 43

killed 160 wounded 20 captured and 19 deserted. those numbers are hazy. i'm sure they were higher, particularly in wounded and desertions. at least 40 killed were buried in a mass grave on the battlefield. they will later be removed. some will be transported back to connecticut. some will be buried in the national cemetery at antietam. this photograph is from alexander gardner's famous series of photographs at antietam. the men talk poignantly about burying the dead. and the horrors of seeing battle for the first time. antietam is life-changing for these men. for all the civil war soldiers who participated in the

bloodiest day. for the 16th in particular, this is going to change them and shape their character. the fact that they were green the fact that they fled from the battlefield. one of them wrote home and said "i am a big coward." he confessed that. i'd never come across anything like it in all my readings of civil war soldiers. there was so much honesty in the accounts of the horrors and also the recognition that they had had so much difficulty in facing the enemy. you have to understand that the 16th connecticut is never going to get another chance. they are never going to be able to make up for that. yesterday i joined the tour of the 126th new york branded as harpers ferry cowards. they were captured as harpers

ferry. they get another chance at gettysburg. they performed valiantly. the 16th connecticut is not the same story. this quote from robert kellogg in his diary, he says what a lot of the men also felt. they had been mistreated, misled, they are angry at their officers. they felt they were not trained well. why were they at the battle he calls it "murder." this feeling of neglect and anger and resentment will only fester in the ranks of the 16th. they had gone into battle with high expectations. now they will start to feel less and less confident. for the next few years, they're going to begin a process and a journey of moving from place to place. something i call the margins of war. this unit will not stay long

with the army of the potomac. they will be at the battle of fredericksburg. but they will be spectators. they will participate in the siege of suffolk, but suffolk is not chancellorsville. they will end up at a place called portsmouth, virginia. essentially garrison duty. portsmouth is so comfortable and so nice, one of their members calls it a perfect village. apparently, they were getting food, visits from home. one soldier, austin thompson, said "i soon forget i am a soldier." likes pretty good for the 16th. they still feel they are being mistreated. they believe they are being forgotten. they do not like being on the margins of war.

this is an illustration from harpers of suffolk. it looks bucolic. that, i think speaks to the sense that they 16th had that they had been forgotten. this quote from william relyea came from his account of the unit. increasingly, they believed that they were "nomads." they did not have a place. and it was not, again this belief that they were not being appreciated by the federal government, by their home state by other units. this is a conviction they cannot shake. by the time they get the portsmouth, to their perfect village, there are these conflicting beliefs within the regiment.

a feeling of disrespected and forgotten. also feeling that they are happy with their position at portsmouth. they are ordered to leave in january 1864 and moved to plymouth. they are unhappy -- in fact, they are furious that they are ordered to leave. they had started to believe that they are more civilians than soldiers. they are so angry with the order to leave their camp at portsmouth, they burn it to the ground. well where are they going? plymouth. plymouth, north carolina is truly the margins of war. they cannot believe it. they start to complain. they cannot get newspapers decent food. who would ever end up in plymouth, north carolina?

they are also convinced that nothing is going to happen. nobody is going to attack them. nobody cares about plymouth, north carolina. guess what? april 17, 1864, the confederates attacked. the union position there is outnumbered. there's. a three-day siege. . the entire garrison surrenders this quote from robert kellogg "we threw up the white rag and gave up." she million nation. -- humiliation. do not forget, this unit started their service running away at antietam. here they are at plymouth and they have to surrender to the confederates. can it get any worse? yes, it can. [laughter]

this time the regiment has dwindled to about 400. it started at just over 1000. there had been resignations, desertions. company age of the unit did not suffer capture plymouth. -- company h of the unit did not suffer capture at plymouth. they escorted civilians away. the remainder of the unit will go to andersonville. the soldiers, not the officers. as samuel grosserrosvenor wrote "horror." this is may 1864. most of them will remain unless they die, until september. some will not leave until early 1865. this image is from robert

kellogg's published account of andersonville. he will write one of the first andersonville descriptions that comes out before the war ends. so they are sense of identity. that they had been neglected and mistreated you can imagine, is only going to continue as they endure the brutality and horrors of andersonville. in their diaries, i have several that i found at the connecticut state library and historical society, they are remarkable. some are very long. some entries are short. some are from men that died in prison. they talk about -- they question their own reasons for joining. they question whether or not they have been forgotten at home.

that question the larger ideals of the war. they wonder about what was the point of this entire war. how can they possibly be left there to do nothing? they feel so helpless. some even talk about, robert kellogg, they would much rather be in the chaos of battle than to be left here, emasculated and helpless in prison. all they're doing is waiting to die. they're suffering from exposure malnutrition, disease -- like all the other prisoners, of course. as i said, the survivors will eventually leave andersonville. september into the early part of 1865. that brings us to 1865, the final year of the war.

this comes from harpers in january 1865. it shows released prisoners interested. i like this -- in charleston. i like this image. it speaks to what many members of the 16th shared. these men former pows, changing clothing, getting out of the tattered rags. . putting on fresh, clean clothing. do you see the american flag in the background? it is very significant in this rendition. i found in many of the accounts from members of the 16th, whether they were written soon after their release or later they talk about the significance of the flag. seeing the american flag again. this quote from george champlin , another member, he left prison

in december. the word "free" is repeated over and over. it is not surprising, of course. they have been in captivity. the meaning is also important for us to think about in the context of the war's larger meeting with immense patient-- larger meaning with emancipation. these men have a complicated view of race and emancipation. some were true emancipation ists, kellogg was one of them. some were not. one was angry that this was a word to end slavery. resentful that this became a war about african-americans' status. thinking when he was in prison that he had made a mistake in

enlisting in the unit army. -- union army. this unit encapsulates the whole spectrum of attitudes. conflicted emotions about what the war had become. the men know that the word free is a powerful word. they do not want to be -- not just prisoners -- they do not want to be in the military anymore. they just want to go home. they just want to be with their families. it is not so easy. they do not get to just go home. they have to go to a place called capmp parole in annapolis, maryland. it looks neat and tidy. maybe not such a bad place to be. the members of the 16th two not

want to be here. it is limbo. you go there and wait. the military, like today, was a bureaucracy. you wait to be processed. some of the men did get to go directly home. i'm not sure how it worked that some got to go home. all of them are very sick and weak. anyway, some of them went directly there. they talk about -- they spend a lot of time talking about getting clean. eating, doing things like reading a book. they had not been able to do these things. the next concern is going home. they are granted a 30 day furlough. getting home is also not so easy either.

it is going to be a difficult transition to just make it home. some talk about getting on the train with a lot of other soldiers. some of them are released prisoners. some are other soldiers on furlough. there is a lot of drinking. the train is overcrowded. george himself was very weak from his imprisonment. he called it "decline of my suffering -- "the climax of my suffering." he had been in prison, at antietam. he finally gets home and get an extension of his furlough. is in and out of the hospital. finally gets back to the regiment. really intriguing, these men gets home and are treated by celebrities.

they are home and with families and friends. the communities come out and treat them to a homecoming. they are going to be taken care of. there will be hospitalizations. robert kellogg comes home and is quite the celebrity. he begins to write his history of andersonville. he makes a very fascinating observation in his diary. he said it almost pays to be a prisoner of war. he's enjoying the attention. he likes it. people are listening to him. he joined the war as an 18-year-old. now he is home and people want to hear what he has to say. this image came from harpers. it is called "home again." it is of a prisoner of war sitting in a domestic scene. recounting his horror, his

horrible experiences of pr ison many prisoners are going to be selling newspapers. some are going to start writing books. many accounts become discounted. i talked to a small group at dinner last night. i do not know that we should discount all these descriptions that came out from the prisoners right after. we know that andersonville and all the prisons were pretty awful. the transition is difficult. these men are still trying to figure out who they are and what this meant and what their status is thought yes, the war is coming to an end. they want this to end. but they are still in the military. they do not get to be free yet. some men do not have this luxury. do not have the opportunity to

tell a story and to be treated well. they literally come home and die at the doorsteps of their homes. a really poignant story. wallace woodford from avon connecticut. his family had several members in the 16th connecticut. quite remarkable. his gravestone. it says "eight months a sufferer in rebel prisons, he came home to die." sydney hayden from east granby, my hometown, he got an extension to his furlough. he is writing family members. he is another one who would turn on the war becoming a war on emancipation. he was a strong democrat. the bitter critic of lincoln.

he wrote "honor is a poor thing to live on." he could care less about the military, about his three-year commitment. these men are joining in august 1862. technically, we are still committed to military service until august 1865. he dies at home on his extended furlough. oliver gates that i mentioned, writing in his diary at andersonville about how he questioned joining in the first place, what was the point of the war he accepted a perl to work outside andersonville prison. -- a parole to work outside andersonville prison. it was seen as a shameful thing to do. he did it to get better food. he is met at the doorstep by his wife.

she tells him that their young daughter is extremely sick. his daughter dies within three days of his arrival. he almost dies too. these harrowing stories of these men coming home and dealing with the aftermath of imprisonment are very powerful. jacob bauer was a german immigrant. he also left a diary. his health seems to be better than many other men. he makes his way back to the regiment. he has his furlough. he goes through camp parole. spends time with his wife, pictured here. emily came to see him in cap during the nomadic time. one of his humiliations he writes about what's being on a steamer when he first let

connecticut and went south to join the regiment. at the time it was in roanoke. he talks about how insulting he thought it was that he had to report to the provost guard and have an african-american soldier that he had to report to. he said he could only take comfort in "the fact that my time is soon out." he just wants to go. the bad luck is not over yet. you cannot make this stuff up. many of you have heard of the sultana, the explosion thank you. this is an explosion in late

april 1860 5 -- this is a collision in late april 1865. news takes a long time. very different than we had today. we know about things. we can learn about events almost simultaneously when they occur. this event occurs april 23-24. lincoln's assassination, the pursuit of john wilkes booth, we have the sultana which is a few days after this. this does not get a lot of press. not as many men died. not as many men are affected. for the 16th, they feel like they cannot take one more tragedy. there were 11 members of their unit on the massachusetts.

this is a vessel that was taking men back-and-forth. they were on furlough. many were released prisoners. they were returning to their unit. it collides with a ship called the black diamond. at the mouth of the potomac. there were 400 total men on board. when it collides with the black diamond, the massachusetts will sink. 7 of the 11 members of the 16th onboard will drown. as martin culver said culver was on the massachusetts, "bad luck." one of the men who died was george champlin, who i quoted earlier. so euphoric that he was free from andersonville. he had been thrilled to be with his family. he was on his way back to the regiment. and he never made it.

the regiment will remain in north carolina. it will be a shell of itself. it will be reduced in numbers. it will continue to welcome back these formally -- formerly imprisoned members. there will be little sense of discipline within the unit. bauer talks about how disgusted he is with the conditions. he said, this was may 11, it is too bad to keep us here. "the boys are getting careless. no discipline is thought of, not even at roll call." this is made, it is going to get into june. men are asking why are we here?

they know the surrender has happened in the assassination. the war, in their minds, is over . why can't they just go home? the paperwork has not come. bernard blakeslee wrote in his regimental history that when the men finally mustered out on june 24, 1865, it did not take long to enlist, it took a long time to muster out. it is almost 150 years ago from today. june 24, 1865. the 16th connecticut will be mustered out of service. they will leave north carolina on june 26. they will finally come home to connecticut on june 29. and they will be greeted, the

streets of hartford, by family, friends, the community, the mayor. there will be speeches. there will be 130 of them that will march down the street of hartford. 130. from 1000 to 130. it is a shocking site. blakeslee wrote that the sight was so stunning. apparently one wife of an officer was told for the first time that her husband was dead. on the day that the regiment arrived back in hartford. there were speeches given. this was an important occasion. state senator as rahall got up and gave one of the most important speeches. he heralded the 16th as "heroes of many a hard-fought battle and worthy veterans of a

redeemed country." yes, they fought at antietam plymouth. this is not really their history. he talks about how they were "no braver regiment as i went out from our city or state." there were other units that left connecticut. somebody today was asking me about the 14th. i do not think the 14th appreciated ezra paul saying "no braver regiment." politicians only say things that are not necessarily true. [laughter] the other thing hall said, he assured them they would not be forgotten. he said that history will keep fresh their memories and write their names on more than granite shaft or marble column. he said "your torn colors give

proof of your deeds of bravery." important point. they had been self-conscious about these questions throughout. from the moment at antietam where they didn't run off the field. all those months and years of being on the margins of war through imprisonment. were they brave? how did they make sense of bravery? really nothing they did quite fit the conventional definition of bravery. i will say a little more about that as i end this talk. their lieutenant colonel got up. he was not always the love it. the soldiers had a lot of resentment towards their officers throughout. burning down their camp was one example of that. he did not get up and say anything false about bravery or

courage. he talked to them about their suffering. he is a man that had endured suffering himself. he had been wounded at suffolk. he had been imprisoned twice including in charleston. his family would later claim that he suffered from insanity due to the war. something we might have a call toptsd. he would die a young man in an insane asylum. he got up on that day, their last formal day together as a regiment in hartford and said "a less amount of glory in the field has fallen on our lot, no regiment has been subjected to so much suffering." this was very important to them.

this will continue to stay with them. robert kellogg will be one of the lead people significant to creating a new narrative about the regiment, which will take those concerns about suffering and questions of bravery and try to write a new narrative. he will be one of the members he will participate in henry ward's trial. seeing henry ward executed for war crimes in november 1865. even with the execution, these men finally able to go home, try

to resume their civilian life. moving forward into the postwar things were not the same. there was a compelling need for the members of the 16th to tell a different story. they sat about it in a very deliberate way. they wanted to create symbols and leave for us memories of their experience that did not quite fit with the stories i have been telling you this morning. i do not have time to go through all of them. two i wanted to show you this morning of the most significant. one had to do with the flag. the other had to do with andersonville. the flag to your right, this comes from mary livermore's account called "my story of the war." it is a wonderful book.

it has beautiful plates. this includes flags of other units. i do not know how well you can make that out. you can see the white flag. that is the 16th connecticut's new flag that was unfurled on battle flag day on september 17 1879. september 17 will be the day that the 16th uses to commemorate, that will be there veterans day. that will be the day they have their reunion. they will come back to antietam they will meet in hartford, they will meet in various places throughout the state. surviving veterans will reminisce about their experiences and reconnect.

this flag was created from scraps of their original regimental flags that they tore up at plymouth before they were captured and kept with them and saved. they brought back after the war and piece together into this new flag. this is symbolic of their new birth. to be remembered not as an unlucky regiment in a negative way, but as a regiment that rose from bad luck and became wh ole again. they want us to remember them as men that endured and survived. lastly, andersonville boy. this was created and dedicated in 1907. the original one is at andersonville. there is a duplicate in hartford.

it is supposed to be robert kellogg. it is a depiction of a young boy. you do not get sense that he is even a soldier. you do not get the sense that he has gone through anything horrific. it is supposed to show the idealism of the young men from the company in east granby. thinking only good things. robert kellogg himself talks about this at the dedication and said that he hoped this would be a lesson and patriotism. these are men questioning their own patriotism. years later, as veterans, all they wanted and hoped, the meaning of their own experience would be that it would be a lesson and patriotism. in conclusion. the final year of war brings into focus the perspective of a unit recently

freed from imprisonment. also in their minds, the imprisonment of military service. they were hopeful for the future but very much concerned to go home. this had been a hard look regiment. the war's larger issues of unionism and emancipation. they just wanted the war to end. as jacob our said -they wanted- -- they wanted, as jacob bauer said, to be home once more and free. the broader politics that had spurred so many to join the war mattered little to them. veterans would begin to feel differently about the experience. like most all civil war veterans, they wanted to ensure their sacrifices meant

something. they had participated in a war to save the union. they were india fund about emancipation and race. -- they were and if want about emancipation and race. -- they were ambivalent about emancipation and race. they wanted to make sure their service would be remembe red. they created what they hoped would be lessons and patriotism, despite the fact that they questioned their own. a unit that faltered at antietam endured imprisonment. a new narrative was crafted of bravery, unity and sacrifice. 1865 was the end and a beginning for the nation. the war ended. they soon found, as did all-americans north and south that they were never the same. thank you very much. [] a[applause]

i guess there is a little bit of time for questions. >> hi, melissa from new york. you mentioned in your conclusion how they questioned their patriotism. and the suffering and the "bad luck" they had from when they mustered in until they left. were there any cases of desertion amongst this regiment? if so, what happened to them if they were caught or not hot? dr. gordon: great question. i did not have time to get into that. there was desertion. even before they left hartford, i found some men got cold feet before they got on the boat. some deserters left on the morning of the battle at antietam/

there are some stories. a couple men i start my book talking about one member charles turner. who is writing one of the -- george whitney, who was very active in re-creating a different narrative. turner is writing whitney asking for forgiveness. he deserted after antietam. after antietam and a lot of members ran away during the fight. they hid in the woods all night. some of them never came back. one member ran away and went all the way to england. never, ever came back. the answer is yes. it happens to a lot of regiments. >> when they were at

andersonville, how many men would die there? when they left, where they immediately sent to a parole camp? i know a lot of prisoners from andersonville were sent to florence, south carolina. dr. gordon: thank you for asking for clarification. about 400 who entered andersonville about a third of them are going to die. i've had a hard time calculating exactly how many died. the numbers are wildly -- i would say between 90-100 will die in prison. like wallace woodford, men will die when they get home. some will die within the months or even a year or two after the war ended. their casualty rate, i don't know that it is that different

than most other prisoners of war. many of the men, when the present can't at andersonville begins -- when the prison camp at andersonville begins to end, some will end up at charleston or florence. >> how did they get from connecticut to antietam? dr. gordon: it is a convoluted journey. they are going to be put on a boat first. they go to new york. they are on trains and then they march. they march on the way to antietam. four men who had never been in the military, some of them we would call white-collar. a lot of them worked outside.

for any soldiers, the kind of marching, it was extremely difficult. when they arrived on the field they are already exhausted. it is tough on them. they are involved in the blackberry rate. when gettysburg is going on, they are in something called the blackberry raid. a horrific march through virginia. the marching experience, they are not in hard-fought battles but they have a rough time. marching can be difficult. yes? >> out of curiosity, did the writing of the book, how did it affect you personally?

you were almost tearful at times telling the story. did it affect you personally? dr. gordon: questi thank you for the question. i found these meant to be fascinating. i do not have any family that participated in the civil war. it is a powerful story. what i hope to convey is that these men, they might not be typical. they might be from the margins of the war. they wanted us to remember them. i hope we can acknowledge that. i think that is part of what has affected me. i was recently in connecticut talking about them.

i realized that this project had brought me home when i was here at the institute as a teenager, i was convinced i had to leave connecticut to understand the civil war. i had to go to gettysburg virginia. you cannot understand the civil war in the north. this project brought me back to my own backyard. thank you. thank you very much. will discuss treason and loyalty in the civil war era. the gettysburg how would civil

war institute organized the event and this is live coverage on american history tv. >> good morning. i am peter carmichael. i am a professor of history at gettysburg college. director of the civil war institute. it is my pleasure to introduce gregory downs. greg has recently accepted a job at uc davis on the other side of the coast so this summer he will be packing up his family and getting in the downs minivan i'm going cross-country. that is not stressful to think about it all, isn't it. going live on c-span is nothing compared to that. he is a specialist in history of the united states. he is a graduate of the iowa

workshop which is many know is a program of note for aspiring fiction writers. it is promoted peace, i do not know the title but i know that it won the flannery o'connor award. is a very good writer who has decided to turn to the craft of history. his most recent book is entitled "the end to war: fighting the civil war after appomattox." i am not the most perceptive but i am guessing your trick is different than what we heard from patrick gallagher last night. [laughter] peter carmichael: we're looking forward to hearing your presentation, the a war that could not end at appomattox. greg downs. [applause] gregory downs: thank you so much and i want to thank also allison

jordan and diane and everyone at the cwi for inviting me and taking care of me. the book that i am going to be drawing from, "after appomattox ," published in april by harvard and it is a study of the years after appomattox and the continuation of war powers. as a test of the power of occupation as the national government works on the inveterate seat and slaves through the tool but it had at hand, a broadly distributed set of outposts across the south. for a surprisingly long period of time they use for powers to conduct a significant although in the long run disappointing occupation to remake the south and antislavery. -- i want -- end slavery.

i want to end with a surprisingly concrete question. when did slavery end? those of you who got up without your coffee, you might think this will be a brief interlude. let me disappoint you a little. the question becomes more complicated be closer we look at it especially if the focus is not our own sense but the way the people of the time thought about and talked about what war was, what piece was, -- peace was, and when the civil war would come to an end. as i detail in my book, the people in positions of power were absolutely adamant that as historical actors the did not believe as a legal and practical matter the civil war could end up appomattox. that it would be disastrous. they were dismissive of people that believe in the civil war

did and at appomattox -- end at appomattox and that they have not thought through what war was and what peace is. the use war powers for years, fighting to suppress the rebellion. you might be caused to ask how this can be true. to understand, we have to step back and look at how they defined war and their certainty that at the end of war had become a state of legal normalcy that we would call these time when the constitution operated through normal waves and the military had the typical peacetime powers that military house which is to say not many. until that time they believed it was politically and legally necessary to sustain what they called the state of war. in doing this i will knowledge that it goes against some of our cultural understandings of war.

especially her contemporary control understandings of war. and that it goes against received wisdom. scholars of reconstruction frequently reach back into the war. it is highly unusual for reasons that i will get into for scholars of the civil war to instead look beyond how the war continued after appomattox or to think about the civil war, the unit of time that extended into 1866 or even 1868 or 1870. there is a good but not sufficient reason that we think of the war is coming to a close in april or may of 18 65. because we operate on a definition culturally of war as battles fought between people in uniform. they often are. but war is not limited to them. in the clalpalm at the beginning of

the civil war and the proclamations that seek to end the war, american scholars and politicians are careful not to defined war simply as conflict on battlefields. instead the front war as a student of time in which the military possessed extreme powers that would be unthinkable and unconstitutional and revolutionary to utilizing peacetime. there are things of the system of law that cannot happen in peacetime and the expression of the powers has to be justified by the use of war. these things, some of which have recurred in later days, or central to how we approach the problem of reconstruction stop. theuse of military commissions in place of civil trial , the use of military power to override civil law. it would be unthinkable at this present moment for the military to avoid the law of pennsylvania but the army does it -- void the

law of the state of pennsylvania but the army does it all the time in 1865. the power to deny habeas corpus. all were illegal in wartime but were considered necessary tools that the army could not release with the surrender of the confederate nation. we will come to the justifications of why this mattered so much. i am not saying that we should apply contemporary theories of war although there is a lot of debate about them. imc in fact the opposite, that our desire to see the war come to a close -- i am saying in fact the opposite, that our desire to see the war come to a close might reflect our understanding rather than the people making decisions at the time. as historical actors they understood that. in following these questions i follow one of the great legal minds and a recognized figure of

the civil war era and that is this man, francis lieber, recently profiled in a wonderful book "on the laws of war." lieber wrestled with many of the problems of the civil war and the 19th century including the relationship of the civil war to other wars of rebellion and civil wars and the relationship to european wars. most famously lieber helped develop a code issued to the army to govern war that would later become one of the basises for international codes of war. he struggled with another issue, not how to fight wars but how to end them. here in a may 1860 five, a month after appomattox, as he recognized the cultural celebration, he intervened to stop what he thought was not only an error but a foolish error which was the belief that the war had come to an end.

he wrote in a periodical director that military officers, "when does a rebellion and? war is ended by piece. -- peace. treaties transform time itself, transforming it on a fixed day at a special our." this was crucial to him, that if we were to talk we had to say that there was a particular moment when the powers that were available changed. otherwise there was no reliable system of law. you could not say when it changed. that moment was the dawn of these time. until that moment can be measured could not be -- the nation could not be in peacetime without wrecking the constitution. this was a problem and civil wars. if the government triumphed it by definition was not going to sign a treaty with the defeat of

power. the u.s. could not sign a treaty because it did not recognize the confederacy. civil wars and not with treaties but with pacification. -- end not with treaties but with pacification. this is a perfectly circular answer because to say that these comes with pacification means that pacification is peace. here are lieber says that nothing in the actions of the rebels to determine the transition. the decision was a statement of policy by the victorious nation. nevertheless, lieber's question of when the civil war ends can seem comically simple to us because most people of the room or set of the war had a single closing point, one of the most vivid and misleading parts of

american mythology, the surrender at appomattox. ken burns within i-4 cliche used to the meeting -- and eye for cliche used the meeting. the home was the sight of the famous meeting between grant and lee. it was of the civil war started in his front yard and ended in his front parlor. what is amazing about this story, of course, is that it is a perfect story and complete fiction. it is not just wrong about the ending but the beginning. the civil war did not and that appomattox or start at manassas. there is something illuminating about the definition. to say that the war did not start at fort sumter but had to begin with soldiers meeting on battlefields and close at the same time. to be fair, over the course of

the miniseries burns tries to complicate this. instead of choosing the assault on for sumpter who chooses bull run to begin the war. instead of a proclamation or congressional act he chooses a battlefield again, this time with a u.s. victory but with powerful evidence of equal standing by the participants. this narrows war into battlefield concentration into something that is on some fundamental level why we mystifying the end of the civil war -- miss defined the end of the civil war. the end of war is victory. it is methods of strategy and tactics. even now many people will talk about appomattox as signaling the end of the dream of the confederate nation, something that would surprise jefferson davis who did not take appomattox as the end.

deducted as a turning point and fled to try to -- she did as a turning point and fled to try to rebuild the confederate nation. the mistake is a common one that in part those emerge -- does emerge to the way people talk about the cultural turning point. in the cultural vocabulary you see people momentarily talking about it as the end of the war. even after they will touch upon denying lee's request, brent told his men the war is over -- grant told the men his war is over. many of his men wrote home. we know that appomattox was a major turning point with the demobilization of hundreds of thousands of volunteers. but what was striking was that among the people glad to wrestle with what it meant how many of

them expressed that cultural feeling that the war was over and immediately began to backtrack. just as there would be people now who would express the feeling that the war continues. grant that not only do not appease the day before the remark -- in his back and -- grant had not only do not appease the day before in his remarks to be. -- lee. so too would the army and the attorney general and most republican congressman. they would say about the war explicitly had not ended at appomattox. to understand this relationship between the cultural sense of a turning point and the policy decisions not ending at appomattox we have to understand what was at stake. what was at stake in this back-and-forth would come

through in the correspondence between lee and grant. as many of you go on the day before the meeting leave rights to grant -- and says i will -- lee writes two grandsons as i would like to discuss peace. his general says that this is impossible. his assumption is that the word peace met something so specific that if robert e lee wrote about peace he was running to say we will keep fighting because the idea of peace as a meaningful piece of language, grant understood that you did not have the power -- he did not have the power nor was he ready to move to that stage. instead of rejecting outright he writes the next day was

something that captures the connection between a cultural sense of war ending and a military and political sense of the war ending. he says we wanted to. -- we have want it to. we have no power to make it. surrender. he says explicitly that if lee is holding out for a legal end to the war the only things you can do is surrender. the gap between peace and surrender will be a crucial one in determining how the political system will approach the month after appomattox. there are other basic reasons why appomattox cannot be the end of the war. the remnants of the army of tennessee and other forces were still in the carolinas. although sherman was bearing down on it quickly and two weeks later after days of negotiations which i will come back to johnson surrendered to william

sherman at april 26. other armies remained in the field after the appomattox surrender though none had the capacity to create defeats at any size. the confederate navy on may 9 jefferson davis captured on may 10. in arkansas, separate bands of troops did not finish surrendering until june 5. there remains the strange world of texas where the confederate general tried to rule his own imperium cut off from the confederacy but unconquered until he fled on june 2 and not until june 19 with the arrival of u.s. forces on galveston island in the proclamation of u.s. authority and the end of slavery when we get the end of the war in texas. -- would we get the end of the war in texas.

in the time after he arrived to the army shipped 50,000 men to texas to suppress insurrection, to guard the border, and to help mexican rebels in their war. in one of those disconcerting elements of civil war history that remind us of the staggering scale, the final surrender was the cherokee confederate general on june 23. before we get to the difference between peace and surrender we have to see how these later surrenders challenge the narrative. had jefferson davis escaped to cuba, at some level the confederate nation would have continued. the ongoing surrenders reminded us that the war was not confined to virginia but included a global struggle. if that was all the thinking

about the limits of appomattox do to capture those complexities that would be important but in fact that has little to do with lieber's point. key was not saying that it could not end at appomattox because it ended at texas. he was saying something broader. no surrender could end of the civil war. in his writings to clarify what had come out of the surrender, lieber wrote "well some believe surrenders take the place of law," lieber wrote that, "it could only be based on astounding ignorance." he followed on other philosophers of war considered war not a synonym for combat and whose definition began with it not being a synonym for combat but a description of a phase of time where there was a will to fight and in availability of power unavailable during

peacetime -- and availability of power unavailable during peacetime. there would be a point between the state of war that followed. if civil wars did not end and surrender and could not ended treaties than hockaday and -- how could the day end? he agrees with an expression. dana argued that the united states holds the conquered enemy until it has secured whatever it has a right to require. until then they hold the country and military occupation. no confederate or southerner could declare the war over, only the national governor. this for people involved in thinking through solitude problems. -- as for thinking through solitude of your problems. --thinking th problemsrough saw

two --thingking through saw two problems. intolerable was the idea of confederates coming to vote to repudiate the war that. if it was peacetime what was to forestall the congressman from coming to washington? most northerners simultaneously believe the confederates could not be placed in control of the counties much less the country. at the same time who then was going to be in charge? if the u.s. government and army was to be in charge, ultimately, that raised big problems if it was peacetime because the

constitutional order does not permit the army to intervene in these ways in daily lives. the problem with calling an end to the war is on the one hand it could be too mild if it meant putting people considered traitors in positions to sustain slavery or overturn the debt or on the other hand creating the premise that the military can vacate governments in peacetime. continuing the war became a way to hold on to the powers they believe necessary without wrecking the constitutional order. at this point you might be asking whether i am imposing ideas about the contemporary world where occupation and notions of wartime figure broadly. we are lucky enough here to have examples that show how people at the time think in these terms laid out by the participants, not just in the back-and-forth between lee and grant but in the surrender at bennett place.

in an underappreciated book by historian mark bradley. in the second major surrender i mentioned earlier at that place near durham, north carolina, we see a debate over where the war will end. sherman met with joseph johnson. the confederates indicated they had contact with jefferson davis and instead of a surrender of armies asked if they could negotiate an end to the war entirely. sherman despite misgivings about dealing with confederate civil officers as civil officers and's upcoming up with a way of taking the offer. in his offer -- ends up coming up with a way of taking the offer. if all the united states was interested in was reunited the

country, and sherman's vision weekend get a vision -- we can get a vision of how to do it. keep local governments in place, to property and political rights including the vote. the government will grant general amnesty to all of the southern people including jefferson davis. this agreement that sherman wrote in classically clear language would produce peace from the potomac to the rio grande. if the civil war was by its end fundamentally about reunion, we can imagine that the united states -- if the civil war was understood to come to a close at appomattox the united states would have taken the offer in a second. we know the exact opposite happened. instead of being welcomed as a confirmation of the centrality of reunion as the central purpose of the war or a confirmation of the end of the war, sherman's offer was instead treated as one of the greatest

political and military mistakes in american history. newspapers bumping off stories of lincoln's funeral train to run lengthy denunciations of sherman that come close to treating him as a traitor to imagine the war can and at this time -- end at this time. grant immediately recognized this was a disastrous mistake by his friend and called an emergency meeting of the cabinet. at the emergency meeting the cabinet voted unanimously something not always the case despite myths about the management of the civil war cabinet. it was a diverse cabinet that disagreed on many things but not on this. andrew johnson, allegedly the person trying to push an end to reconstruction joins in the fieryy rhetoric

that they can end the war in that way. sherman becomes widely denounced. grant is set to replace sherman. instead grant gives sherman the news that he has to take back the offer and demand unconditional surrender. that centrality, not peace but surrender. people thinking about what the implications would be. to understand how we came to this position is necessary to look back and say, what was sherman thinking? he wasn't admirably clear thinker and it gives us a window into alternatives that were available including the alternative not taken of the war ending at appomattox. sherman operated on premises that would have been recognizable but not persuasive. the first that there was a sharp difference between wartime in peacetime widely accepted. the difference was determined by

armies in the field and that would not be accepted by the cabinet or the policy of the army. the second was that the united states not only could not but should not conduct a successful occupation in the rural states of the former confederacy. that would be rejected by a government that decided to run an active occupation of the south. wartime in peacetime. -- and peacetime. sherman the scourge of the self, obliterating a town in tennessee, overseeing the march to the sea. seeming to offer easy terms to the south. it speaks to sherman. he wrote that "war is cruelty and you cannot refine it." the also wrote "in peacetime you can call on me for anything." peacetime signaled the end of war and the end of battleship maine -- a sharp difference --

battle should mean a sharp difference. this is not the question now for war is closed. sherman's second guiding principle was that it was impossible to occupy a region as fast as the south. -- vast as the self. keeping the government intact would save money. he could not imagine the u.s. intended to displace judges and manage the self like an occupied country. but by rejecting his plan, the u.s. government committed to exactly that. and in this commitment as he watched this sherman was taken aback, comparing the actions of the u.s. in the south to napoleon's occupation of spain as democrats would compare it to

britain's occupation of india. the said the united states have created pure anarchy over a self could never govern. no army -- south it could never govern. it is hard to know or do you think about these comparisons that the u.s. was the harshest occupier in history. it harkens back to a discredited literature of reconstruction that magnified and invented incidents of direct assault by soldiers into a harsh occupation. on that level we do not see that. after the execution of lincoln's assassin there is only one execution of a confederate for war crimes. and in fact many soldiers behaved with decorum in their time in the south. that is not what sherman was talking about.

he was talking about the ultimate power that the army had. while many modern books portray a rush to peace, when the government did not try to remake the south, it was a misunderstood and at times still planned but partly successful occupation. which sherman thought was impossible is in fact what happened. andrew johnson not charles sumner was in the opinion "no civil authority which should be recognized which has its source in rubble appointment." what would follow that decision? the peacetime authority in the military had the power to decide who not to keep.

that would create sherman's nightmare of a south with no government at all. as u.s. forces arrived an occupation. let's look at the maps of what followed the occupation. the data has been hard to access which i have available at map occupation.org. which shows where the occupation was. we can see that at the time of surrender that you have an army that necessarily as clustered in tennessee and virginia but does not have significant presence in terms of permanent or semipermanent presence across the south. between april and may despite the surrenders and other problems you can immediately see an army that instead of rushing to washington dc for the grand review is beginning to spread

across the south even in the first weeks. if you look to the summer you see an army expanding dramatically in places not worry it is marching through but where it is establishing posts it expects the last for a month or longer. march, april, may, june. you can see an army that is not moving as if it is operating under restraints of peace. the first stage of the occupation is the declaration of the army's ultimate authority. within days of surrender they extended the line of occupation east of the mississippi. under different restraints that ultimate power provide a brief window for many states until the summer of 1870. the army expanded from 120 outposts to cover more than the 750 and the former confederacy. -- more than 750 in the former

confederacy. station troops in all important towns. keep the country under military surveillance. these were not just major cities which sherman would imagine might be a roman model. instead places like grandville, walterboro, houstonville. places which were hard to find on the map them and some of which are impossible to find out. the army marched -- find now. the army established themselves in counties where they code and arrested outlaws and created local police removed officials and appointed new officials. and reserved the functioning of law for themselves. it is not fair to say that the end of appomattox and the

surrenders made no difference to the army. because of the orders that come down through the army they are very clear on one thing. you could still govern the south as if they were at war but you could not take without compensation. this is an important distinction that the army focuses on. on the cultural level they should treat people kindly but in terms of ultimate power that was the crucial distinction that was made in terms of official power. when the army arrived therefore it marked a new moment. it curtailed the anarchy that had passed from the rejection of sherman's order in the absence of recognizable civil law. the mark steyn and recognized no authority but their own, something unthinkable in peacetime. they had lost the right to citizens. the country is under martial law

and the civil authority is dormant. in some areas former confederate clerks or magistrates were told they were directly responsible for military power. quickly white southerners began to think of their soil is occupied by the enemy and made comparisons with the indians after the mutiny of 1857. as the army's begin to spread we reach another date that might mark the end. in may of 1865, andrew johnson proclaimed the rebellion almost entirely overcome. almost as her deliver it. -- is very deliberate. occasionally this will be referred to as the end of the war but does not answer the questions about ensuring that the proclamation would not and war powers -- end war powers.

army officers were encouraged to defer to them when they code. they wanted to give up the control of civil courts. the army retained ultimate control over legal cases involving free people and soldiers. the provisional government would take care of most of it but the army would have the final say. with the continued suspension of heaviest corpus and the military power -- heaviest corpus -- habeaus corpus, be set aside verdicts and arrested civilians. backed by both administrative support and internal logic occupation did not come to a close with the appointment of

the duplex government but actually expanded. even in loyal kentucky were supposed ongoing challenges. the troops spread into new territory, expanding. although the summer would be the peak of the geographical expansion it was not different in terms of placement but total numbers from the fall. in the fall we continue to hold sites across the confederacy and these sites would become places for freedmen's bureau agents and a side arm became the side arm. what is the deal with the occupation? you would think that they were simply waiting for somebody. the first act was to end slavery. this can seem a strange question to us. it had been two and a half years since the emancipation proclamation.

why did they need to end slavery? in fact only a fraction of slaves had actually achieved legal freedom by appomattox. in terms of reaching u.s. lines. and it's slavery survived. the second amendment would not be certified and then only by the ratification of southern states responding to the insistence of president johnson using threats of war power to coerce them. while we think of slavery as a weak institution in fact it was resilient even after appomattox. many white southerners adamantly believe that slavery in some form on some level would be saved. some states refused to outlaw it even when president johnson urged them to. as soldiers marched into untouched areas of the south they saw that endured months after appomattox. if you mean freedom, and agent

wrote, it is only your power that will ensure it. . army officers were consistently about finding people still enslaved. one general proclaimed in june i have grown satisfied there is an can be no immediate emancipation. to announce their freedom is to not make them free. we know from stories of slaves in mississippi of people running away to freedom in july and even later in 1865 being held not in oppression but actual slavery and they can reach u.s. lives. you can see this in the language that soldiers use.it is only in the fall that they start acting surprised. in the summer when the summer when they survey found slaves they do not need to explain it. it is a given that where the army has not reached slavery is enduring.

soldiers marched through read the emancipation proclamation or force the owners at gunpoint to read it. even that would not end slavery as they came to understand. as they brought news, the development of a crucial way i'll go freedom which they said could only be exercised by that part of the colored population within the lines of permanent military occupation, the comparatively small part of the whole. growing from interactions with free people that brought news that rebels disobeyed u.s. proclamations long after appomattox, the army and freed people together developed a sense of rights, not a separation of government but being embedded in the government. the only way a right has meaning is if you can access someone in the government to protect you

from private actors trying to deny those rights. as free people brought news and complaints of whippings and murder and torture and branding preventing people from moving and exercising freedom, officers began to intervene more and more directly and develop a case as to why they could not leave. they overruled laws, bandwidth by military order, dispatch troops to the countryside -- band whippings by the military order, dispatch troops to the countryside. the game to believe that occupation was the only way of sustaining basic rights for freed people because they saw that many planters disregarded the law of the united states. as i followed the soldiers through the south i skipped over a common endpoint of the war. it speaks to transformation. let's step back and talk about

how can we imagine a world with this and this. all do we get both the occupation of the rebel state and the demobilization of the army? how can there not be at the same time? even if the cabinet rejects shermans plan and even if the war department begins to spread into occupation we see the enormous investment in the volunteer force. the work speedily. the army, to cut costs, and responding to democratic pressure, begins moving out volunteers quickly. from one million in april there are only 240,000 in july and over the next year the number would drop to roughly 20,000. the army never returned to the previous prewar era but was established with numbers two or

three times the prewar basis in the army as the regular army was remade in 1866. how to make sense of this? one way is to imagine that this was a conspiracy to undercut the occupation by sending home the people who operated it. what is interesting is if you look at a truck like this which is slightly hard to follow. the redline is the number of posts and the blue line is the total number of troops. these things are not operating in the first months in opposition. the army did not believe it would need one million people to occupy the south. this might be full if practicality or smart judgment. they believed it could function with a few tens of thousands of soldiers. later officers would believe it was not enough but in the early days they are sending people off and home. this changes over the fall of 18 65 were you start to see the occupation causing commanders to

pull in troops. partly because they are seeing the assaults in the countryside. this is what army officers ride in -- right in and say you were giving us contradictory orders. do more with less. it takes time to move through the hierarchy but this is a reflection not of the desire to undercut occupation but of a desire of the inability to think through the implications of actions. there are other and appoints that matter -- endpoints that matter. governments are elected provisional governments something, and in every form of occupation. when congress returns johnson thinks they will come close to the end of the war. it exquisitely asserts control over war powers and rights it

into legislation -- explicitly asserts control over war powers and writes it into legislation. tennessee is included but congressional republicans are excluded because. the powers of war congress says along to them and this leads them to the famous fight between them and andrew johnson and another effort and a crucial moment for johnson proclaims the insurrection at an end in april 1866. those of you who are lawyers know that it is frequently used as the end of the war but johnson did not even think that because when he begins getting responses saying that because of the proclamation it must mean that we have to obey habeas corpus and military power is at an end. johnson told the secretary of war not at all.

in your practical relations nothing has changed. the president has not minimized your power. hearing this, a radical goes to andrew johnson and says you forgot to say that civil war is paramount. so just signed this order and that will say civil war is paramount and the supreme court will sit in circuit in the south. johnson refused. even andrew johnson will not say that this is the end of the war much less congress. we know that in the time ahead that we see them these arguments over when the war will end the famous fights between congress and johnson over who has the control. matt that the war has ended although sometimes rhetorically johnson said that but who has the power to end it. eventually we know that the army

, is given the power to march. to intervene in states. this is not a new set of powers but an exquisite continuation of powers from 1866 with one new provision, that the army has charged the enrollment of african-american voters. in the state the provision remakes itself with biracial electorate and we see over 1868 the movement of what people will call the dawn of these and several rebel states though not all. seven states are permanently returned. we immediately ran the sea the army starting -- then see the army starting to play and soldiers saying that you have to obey habeas corpus. now civil authority is paramount. even then struggling states

continue on the process because of a combination of violence and technicalities. 1870. the most able republican mind in the senate about what to do with georgia say let us not mistake what we are debating. we are debating whether and when the civil war will end. if we let them back the civil war is over. in february of 1871 with the seating of george's representative congressman callout let us have peace. it is fact lasted longer than the stage of war from fort sumter to appomattox. we also know that there are other definitions that talk about war as violence and reconciliation and those are also important cultural definitions. we know that the end of the war did not mean the end of violence. we know from many about the ongoing insurgency and the

violence on the ground in the south. when they talk about that that is not what they meant by the end of the war. wartime meant a specific set of powers and just like to think it is an error to say the war ended at appomattox so too do i think it is an error to say it continued until 1876 or the present day. cultural definitions are meaningful but it is policy that says the war began in 1861 and ends in 1871. what does it mean to say that? if we can wrap up, we understand how it came to be. we can ask questions about the civil war and reconstruction. would you get what reconstruction did accomplish and the extraordinary tools used , to end slavery, something not guaranteed at appomattox. to remake the constitution which

is dependent on the utilization of war powers. reconstruction, well it is alluring to understand, if only they knew what we know everything would have gone better. we can see that they took incredible actions which were of the cult of them a few years before because of the context of the moment they thought they had nothing else and yet still they came to grief. this is the difficulty of the problem that reconstruction posed. also thinking about the relationship between war powers and reconstruction forces us to confront difficult and hard to resolve questions. the freedom and rights to not begin with laws or proclamations or constitutional amendments, does that mean that freedom depended then or now upon forced to be meaningful? -- force to be meaningful? amendments emerge dependent on

military coercion. does it help to understand and a variety to argue that the civil war the technical sense was a resolution -- revolution. might it help us to understand the people who had principled opposition to reconstruction not rooted solely in racism or white supremacy but in a grave fear about what this would do to the constitution and the country's legal order? might it help us to think about it lost impact of the civil war which is the creation of a brief government. in the space of an awareness that government would treat with massacre and oppression. finally if we followed them extending into reconstruction can we see that reconstruction has a military history and that the civil war understood rightly could never have solely a military history separate from politics?

that it was so inextricably, the military and political aspects so inextricably caught up with a good never -- that they could never separate the military and little histories. let me show you the website i was talking about. this is the storyboard it will lead you through -- that will lead you through the phases of reconstruction. you can want for the army is from 1865 to 1880. the different colors refer to different things. it can help you to think about and look at all kinds of different things. regional stories as well as changes to time and the myth of 1877 which reportedly claimed that the army was withdrawn from the south in 1877 which was factually on for a. -- untrue.

i will be delighted to take any questions. [applause] >> steve, western massachusetts. if i followed your argument i would have to conclude that the second world war did not end in may of 1945. the occupying powers of germany had occupied zones in both countries and there were military tribunals trying the citizens for war crimes. i guess my question or comment is it seems to me one of the problems in this discussion is that you are presenting only two options, war and peace whereas in fact depending on how you define it -- and gary gallagher last night focused more on the extreme violence, yes there was some violence and insurgency

after appomattox the reconstruction but certainly the level of violence was down by orders of magnitude -- there was an intermediate state between the two. war in terms of this incredible clash of armies ended in the spring of 1865. peace in terms of the legal sense you're talking about did not start until the early 1870's or later. but there is something in between. gregory downs: i think that is a very astute question. after appomattox we will talk about the terms that they used. the terms are used was a state of war in which the powers of the army remain and that would be terminated by peace as a way of explaining how it was you can have a state of war when you

do not have explicit clashes between soldiers. i think it definition has to be -- a definition has to be involved in a question -- i do not think scale is the proper definition because then you end up in the oddity of there can be no such thing as a small war. there are wars with far fewer casualties the the civil war that we would call wars.argue not think scale is the answer but i think that you are right . not endpoints but turning points and thinking about what it means to have a state of war. world war ii, legal scholars have been arguing exactly what you said. looking at the order of the united states that even as we get the celebration in times square we get the army explicitly saying the war is not over and war powers have not ceased in relation to japan or its own soldiers. that echoes the u.s. sending soldiers to the grand review. when soldiers say i signed

up for the duration of the war they say that the war is not over and we say when it is over and they say it will not be over until congress seats the representative. there is a sentiment in the army that congress was going to have to sign up. there is no question that there is a turning point in different ways of distinguishing. what i would do is reserve piece as they did for a very different -- peace as they did for a very specific point. >> david of alexandria virginia. part of what the problem is here seems to be the absence of constitutional vocabulary for precisely that point, between a violent war in a situation where proper constitutional structure

is being reestablished. i was wondering since initially in a state of war, the war powers were asserted through the north as well as the south. did there come a point where the sort of partial end of the war was recognized by agreement with everyone that war powers could not be exercised in the north. where the courts were opened in the north the military could not dare, the president or the military could not suspend habeas corpus? gregory downs: there is an active debate about women to lift habeas corpus in the north which does not come -- when to lift habeas corpus in the north which does not come immediately. the rebellion is moving through the north. the supreme court weighs in on

this on the millicent case. he was tried under war crimes. because indiana had functional civil courts he could not be tried in front of a military commission. this does not speak although it is an indication of where the supreme court would go to the south does not speak to the question about what it would have done where you have civil courts answerable to military authorities. you do see with an interesting set of exceptions in kentucky and moved to pull back -- a quick move to back puklll back. kentucky ends up flabbergasted. the cannot imagine how they are under martial law deep into the fall of 1860 five and householders are regulating democratic elections and

refusing to obey habeas corpus. they are indicting soldiers all over the place. there is a nebulous state of conditions that leads people to talk about there are things that we cannot. in the south, in the rebel states they occup operated differently. they had wartime authority that was expensive but it was ok. >> continuing on with the supreme court, where is the supreme court decision were they defined the end of the war as johnson's august 20 1866 proclamation fit into your skin? -- scheme? gregory downs: you get a series of decisions that says that april of 1866 ends the war in places other than texas.

in august, it extends the proclamation to texas. this they themselves said it true for matters of civil law but political questions the court cannot review. in other senses, we need to have a start date where we can say that regular law resumed but there are issues of politics the court cannot review and that congress, we can say in retrospect this was the end of war but in other ways wartime continues. it creates an important legal fiction but does not have implications for what is done on the ground in the south. those are issues later to determine the validity of contracts. there has to be a moment where you can say which court has authority at which time. in that case yes. in terms of leading them to overrule and the one-time very

threatened congress stripped the supreme court power to hear a case. that is a political and not a legal question. >> justin from vermont. long street and mosby after the war held posts within the government that they had fought against. how common was it for x confederates -- ex confederates to work for the federal governmentwe are very excited about

the program and hope that you all come back next year and join us and exploring the legacy of the civil war it is my pleasure to introduce a guest from penn state university. you learn a tremendous amount from your professors. you gain an enriching experience at the graduate level from your peers. he is a superb writer and a truly great editor. that comes from his newspaper days. he has been the editor of the journal of the civil war era. it's worth looking at. he is done a magnificent job of building up that journal.

his dissertation became the book virginia's private war. it is the finest study of the confederate home front. many have drawn upon it. he has an understanding of power relations and how they play out. it's not class driven, he's able to bring it all together. virginia's private war, it is published by oxford. it is fantastic. his most recent book is entitled with malice toward some. he will be speaking about the book this morning. bill blair. [applause] >> that was incredibly generous.

this is my first time presenting at this conference. what a delight. you ought to be commended for sitting in there and hanging in there and being so attentive. here i am. the last one. i hope it's not the last one finally. we will take that. doing a slice out of the book, i thought this was appropriate for this particular conference dealing with the end of fighting and the lingering effects of the civil war. i want to take you back 150 years to a stretch of time from when the fighting was ending to a year later. it was a time in which the victors held the defeated south in a very hard grasp.

it was a timing condition in which former confederates of fear the worst. that some of them might be hauled up on charges of treason and executed. they had, after all, waged war against the united states, fulfilling even the narrow definition of the crime of treason in the u.s. constitution. and, they could see the sermons that were printed and learned about the preachers who were standing in the pulpits, calling for their heads, reed the political tracts, look at the newspapers, and here certain politicians like senator jacob powered of michigan. then, there were the revelations of units like leslie gordon's 16th connecticut.

when news of andersonville hit and images came back to the north, congressional investigations occurred and discussions were made about whether there should be some form of retribution for those acts. top that off with the first assassination of a u.s. president in history put all that together and you were getting the possibility of a perfect storm of vengeance. i have to tell you that more than a few people appear to be ready to overlook lincolns cry for leniency in the second inaugural, and instead actively wanting to pursue malice towards some. it didn't happen, did it? for our country say, i'm glad it did not. no one hanged for treason although there were indictments here in their, more indictments

than you probably know. there was a case that even made its way through the lower court's the quickly became overturned and scuttled. the coming down of andersonville prison did hang for war crimes, not treason. the lincoln conspirators also tried by military commission had their next broken with the hangman's news, including the first woman in u.s. history. yet, further bloodletting did not happen. making us ponder and question seriously, did the confederates get off scott free. i am here to tell you that they did not. they did receive punishment. a good portion of the remedy for

their crimes against the united states came in a place where we m might never expect. that is in the 14th amendment of the constitution of the united states. this would be a good time to remind you to make sure you, if you don't have one, reach for it, we will need it in 15 minutes. i'm going to do something first before we get there, but i will be leading us through the 14th amendment in a way that i think never has been done before. before i get there and before i go further, i just want to ask yourself to put yourself in the place of those northerners those men and women who had lost parents, spouses children, and again, we want to be forgiving and should be forgiving. i need you to get back to the mindset of the people who were mad as hell and as what could

you do to the rebels. what are your choices? a lot of this comes from letters who went to andrew johnson and are in the national archives today. i have already said execution. that is obvious. you can hold them up on treason hang a few, and make a statement about secession. how would you do it? hanging was obviously the method of choice, but simple hanging just might not do. wouldn't you like to send a statement and make a spectacle out of it? would you, like a cooperative from wisconsin, be so excited that you offer to come for free and crafted the gallows for jefferson davis himself. would you like s k hubbard want him hanged with the rope that was used on john brown. where they would get it, i have no idea.

[laughter] our would you like the sick people from lancaster county, pennsylvania, recommended davis be hanged at 92 feet high. why? because then he could dangle higher than the evil biblical figure in the book of esther. what else could you do? how about banish some of the leaders? you bet. charles sumner believe there could be no chance of executing them, but let's send 500 or so out of the country and banish them. how he would come up with a list, i have no idea. what else could you do? how about confiscate the property? yes, starting with slaves, but don't stop there make sure they

did not receive reimbursements for their investments in state and confederate bonds or that the currency would be honored. what else could you do? how about deny them political influence. these were the people who were blamed for getting us into this mess in the first place the politicians who educated to get out of the union, do you want back in congress? i don't think so. whatever you can do to prevent them from voting or holding elected office, let's do that. what else could you do? haven't gone down the list yet. this one i think none of us would have gotten to. it's very creative, and you will see why in just a second but you could shame them. how do you do it? a mr. smith from new york city i don't think that was a pseudonym, wrote the president that he should have jefferson

davis parade down broadway " petticoat regimental's." that is a reference to davis being captured in a shawl. they made a cross-dresser feminist, so on. it wasn't true, but good press. they wanted to take jefferson davis " in his crinoline and boots and cage them up and traveled throughout the whole country and exhibit as a show for $.50 ahead. " she had to put in print the seas -- parenthesis, " i would give five dollars to see him." and then it was added, and this

is the part i love, " and in this way the underlying national debt could be paid, and in this way a good deal of good could be done." rub the rebels noses in their sins and balance the budget in the process. any hopes of that today? i'll let you be the judge of that. as i mentioned where we will find the best articulation of how they punish the rebels beyond execution is in the 14th amendment. it is a divisive is little understood for how a channel the cries for vengeance into a document that enacted rituals of legal democratic culture. confederates lost property slaves were not returned a masters, and the loss amounted

to $3 billion of wealth in 1860. that is not jump change. that is more than two times the total capital invested in railroads for the entire nation in 18 60, and probably would be $52 billion in today's money. the people, once in slate, were recognizes citizens by birth. once your citizens, it opens doors that you could become equals to the former masters. the confederates would not be compensated for the loss of their slaves did it may surprise you that some of the more delusional planners actually expressed desire to be paid by the federal government for that. another untold amount of money went down the drain in confiscated goods and other property that it been seized during the war under the banner of military necessity. that was not coming back either. nor were the investments in

state or national confederate war efforts. there were attempts to curb the political power of the former rebels, and all of this was sanctioned in one of the landmark amendments of the constitution. that is with the journey will and today. we will try to understand why the rebels were not hang for treason, especially because most northerners considered that they had committed the crime against the state. some may think that lincoln had stop the killing with his call for mercy in the second inaugural, others might point to the paroles given to the confederate soldiers at the surrender. still others might say that mercy is a hallmark of a republican form of government that features democratic processes. i think these were all kind of in play, all part of the formula, that they are all in the area of sentiment of feeling

and so on. i actually think there are a couple of other reasons to go into this decision, and the country did make a decision on this. one was a lack of coherent, persistent political will to press long enough and hard enough to make executions come. the other can be in the budget year at ease of her own legal system, showing how important the rule of law was to 19th-century americans. in this case, perhaps for the best or not the country could of had, reason trumped emotion. first though, we have to go back 150 years as the momentum seem to be building to trying the rebels. before lincoln's assassination, treason indictments surged in 1865 and 1866.

east to tennessee, i strive to one region of uni's who have been held under the thumb of the confederacy from us to war, was especially active, with more than 2000 cases on the docket for treason in givingg aiding comfort to the enemy. you have to roll your heads back and try to remember that at this time in constitutional and political life, people believed in treason against the state. john brown hanged not for insurrection, but for treason against the state of virginia. he had become at that point the first man executed for that crime since the constitution. so stay treason is possible, and more than 4000 names were submitted to the grand jury, but it quickly became apparent that

president johnson's national pardons had muddied the waters with those cases. the action that grabbed the greatest attention however came in mid june of 1865, just a couple of months after appomattox, the u.s. district court of virginia handed down indictments of 37 former officials and military officers for treason. this of those included, robert e lee, as well as two of lee's sons and a nephew. the greeted the news with some consternation, judged by a very hastened decision on his part to file for a pardon with the president. by the way, he never got it and tell 1975. the oath was lost. seward gave it to a friend as a souvenir. it was not discovered until the

1970's in the national archives. the paroles reason presented obstacles for trying these men for treason. legal experts work just shoving those paroles aside. attorney general james speed had said so in an opinion to the president, and he was joined by france's labor, who gregg downs is talking about, a famous legal consultant for the administration, columbia college professor and author of the code of war. these guys reason that grant and the other generals had acted not as civilian political leaders but his military officers. they could grant paroles, but the terms and compassed only military actions and did not secure amnesty from civil prosecution.

military actions according to these men lasted only during the war, very similar to the prisoner exchange system. the attorney general in particular observed that only a president could issue a pardon and that such power could not the delegated. by the way where is the paper trail that tells us what lincoln thought or condoned in this case? there is none. the door was open to ignore the paroles and to take men like me to court. except ulysses s. grant stuck in. -- stepped in. he had to surrender that man, as he called them, and he has to go hat in hand to grant again to save his life. lee had written to him directly,

asking whether the paroles would be upheld. grant took up his case, went to see president johnson personally. the president, despite would you think about andrew johnson, was looking to prosecute and thinking he wanted to move forward with these cases. until grant said, you do that, i resign. johnson, understandably, caves. perhaps that gesture by grant would have ended the matter for trying key military figures although that remains debatable, but obviously it did not in anything for the politicians of the failed confederacy. grant himself was not squeamish about prosecuting the rebels. he leaned towards our treatment of politicians and military personnel who appeared to have stepped outside of conventional boundaries during the conflict. for instance, grant actually

offered $5,000 reward which affected the correlations correctly is about $75,000 in today's money, to anyone who hunted down who hunted down john mosby because of his leadership in partisan fighting. he also did nothing, grant, to stop the federal court's from indicting nathan bedford forced for treason. after appomattox, he also presided over the arrest of key politicians, including the former governors of virginia and north carolina, the latter of which spent 47 days in prison without facing charges. we typically interpret grant as being magnanimous, focusing on the sentiment appeal of mercy and i think that is there don't get me wrong, but we also ignore the reason and some of the rationale for what he had done. it could be the case that he

applied a targeted mercy, not only out of kindness, but rekindling the desire to continue the fight, especially through guerrilla actions. no need to poke a hibernating bear. politicians who had conducted the war, they were fair game. ok, so why did no politicians swing from the gallows? i could not find a standard height. i looked, but i'm not sure what it should be. this brings me though to the lack of political will. what seems obvious when you say it, but as kerry gallagher pointed out, often appears secondary or even does not appear and historical accounts is that union or reunion served as the goal of the people from the loyal states.

because of this, we can immediately remove most democrats in the list of people wanting vengeance. they may have harbored grudges against the former enemy, but they needed them to win elections. that much was clear from the 1864 election results. by the way, a good deal of the republican party share this sentiment. you have to put yourself back again into the time that the republican party was a mere 10 years old, before the fighting finally ended, they had gone into the war as a very strange collection of northeastern financiers with social revolutionaries, abolitionists. the only thing binding them together was a sentiment of not wanting to have slavery into the territories. once abolition comes and that questions decided, with a party held together? a lot of republicans in this

kind of context felt that they had to reach out and look to see if there was some kind of reconciliation or some kind of way of patching up political coalition. at the time, black people are not voting. two groups of surprised me the most when doing this research for my book. i expected i would buy -- find the thirst for vengeance among radical republicans, and that is the one place you can find some a few of the key people who were members of the hang them faction were george julian of indiana and jacob powered of michigan but i also expected to find vengeance among african-americans. after all, what had happened through 300 years of history at that point? evidence did not match the impressions. for african-americans, it is incredibly hard to find expressions of vengeance and articles, newspapers, or in the

scant private correspondence that survived. once in a while, a july 4 celebration in pennsylvania in 1865, 1 can find a black soldier shouting his desire to see jefferson davis dangle at the end of a rope, but in this newspaper account "the other colored troops not to be order down." i think black people did not mind seeing the discomfort of former confederates, and they did not mind that you buy the union, and like the individual who was quickly hushed by his compatriots more than a few probably would not have work to hard to stop the hanging of a few of the slave mongers. outspoken hatred of the former rebels, no. that simply did not take black people were they needed to go. it risks giving white people on both sides of the sectional divide just one more thing around which to unite.

you did fine digits, people advocating for hanging, but this group split, old abolitionists who have fought for the end of slavery for decades and had suffered reprisals and were sometimes killed and their political efforts but many of these very same leaders became advocates of clemency. what is going on here? henry ward beecher had been running guns to the antislavery forces in kansas. he was a leading religious figure in the country like billy graham. he steps up and asks for mercy for the rebels. garrett smith, another patient -- person against harpers ferry he stands up and ask for mercy.

for his gravy, hardliner who criticize lincoln headed the list of men who supply to the bill bond for jefferson davis. you might surmise that some of this clemency came from people seeking to absolve themselves of past sins, but frankly i have seen no guilt expressed. i think there was something more at work. we tend to place historical actors into boxes abolitionists, woman's right advocate, and so on. rarely, duly consider how people spend those boxes, how they can be abolitionists and reformers in general who want to improve society. many of these people, and this startled me, have been part of the movement to end capital punishment in the country. that movement is more successful

than this today. they believe in creating more benevolent and civilized nation. they said the death penalty existed for two reasons, reform the prisoner, deter the crime. he added, hanging never reforms anybody. pretty obvious conclusion there. he also said, and this gets into american ideals, i say take a step of moderation in the direction of humanity because it will be understood to the advantage of free governments all over the world. that sense of america being special because of being an example for republican governments certainly factored into this thinking. there was an article soon after that they gave me a couple of other insights. the abolitionist said that our mercy will prove that we are not hypocrites. that we care about the

underdogs. we care about the suffering. if the sufferers are planters, we have to carry about them too. -- to care about them too. they also believed hanging the insurgents would hurt the chances for black suffrage by waking greater resistance among the confederates. we have seen a desire for vengeance that could not overcome the political response of the time. we see the radicals who could push this issue were divided. and greater pressure may not have succeeded in the end because of the fact of the way our civil cords are set up, the way our legal system evolved. recognition of that fact came in 1865 is the senate amended why the trial for jefferson davis was not moving forward. the attorney general pointed out to problems. first, he considered civil cords

rather than military court'ts. once the hangings occurred, the country's appetite for military commissions was done. there was a lot of criticisms that the united states did that without going to civil trials instead of conducting them in military court. speed was particularly adamant that this had to take place in the civil court. it was unfortunate for those who supported punishing the rebels military tribunals brought latitude but the trial anywhere, install whoever you want as the jurors. can't do that with the civil trial. the civil trial, you have to pick the jurors from the vicinity of where the crime was committed, right? where were the crimes committed the confederacy? speed looks around and had to

say it was richmond. any problems holding a trial in richmond? you see what's happening? especially at a time when african-americans are not allowed to vote, sit on juries what ever. who is going to be the jury pool? former confederates. people recognize the problem and the matter came up during hearings before the joint committee on reconstruction in early 1866. i love this part. judge john underwood, the man who presided over the indictments of lee and others was asked by the congressman whether lior davis could be convicted of treason and a court trial held in virginia. oh, no, he answered very quickly. i love what came next. more telling is what he added to the sentence. oh no, unless you had a black

jury. when a senator fell back and said, do you think we could do? such a t such a thing? he responded, i could package rate to convict them. i know union men in virginia. let's think about this. this is a congressional hearing. this guy testifying under oath. he is a sitting federal court judge, and he's saying that i contemporary the legal system and bring you back a conviction come hell or high water. as leslie said, you cannot make this stuff up, right? ultimately the government backed down from prosecuting davis and any of his compatriots, securing a conviction seemed to risky too convoluted, and if you lost to such a case, a much of the damage that would do for trying

to do away with secession. you can ask he hurt your case more than anything. advisor to the government said the risks of such absurd and discredited issues of a state trial or assumed for the sake of a burden -- verdict, which if you obtained it, would settle nothing not now settled. in early 1869, the government basically dropped the case and walked away. this long detour kept us from finding out how the rebels were punished and this brings us to the 14th amendment. if you want to look at your sheets now, i'm going to walk you through this. this is probably one of the most important amendments for

litigating issues of personal liberty in the country. it was adopted by congress in june of 1866. it was finally ratified in july of 18 ca. it took two years. -- it was finally ratified in july of 18 68th. other than tennessee, which went through construction, the other confederate states would not accept this. they voted against it. it finally had to be shoved down their throats later by military rule. most people know the first section if i just started directing your to it, this is for me -- and familiar to you. it sets up the issue of who is a citizen in the united states. the answer, who ever is born

here, right? if you're born in the u.s., you are a citizen. we take that for granted, but that is not the way citizenship to determine around the world. there are other ways of doing it, birthright there legislation, mother, other means. if you're born here, you're a citizen. why does that matter? anybody ever hear of dread scott? that scott was the standard in 1857 when the supreme court said no black person in the country could be a citizen. strike that, we will change that. now they will be citizens. for the importance of civil liberties and cases of liberty we will make the u.s. government the final arbiter to decide whether laws are discriminatory.

we are going to protect the person's life, liberty, or property, and it cannot be done away without due process of law. really important, brown versus the board of education row the way. -- roe versus wade. for most of america, that's what -- where it stops. that is the whole amendment for most. how come there are four more sections? what do we make of those things? i want to tell you that what those four sections will show you is the mind set of people in 1866 and the power brokers and how they are going to keep the rebels in check. that is what these are doing. let's go to section two. this is my favorite section of all of these.

i will get to why in a minute. it isn't urgently written thing. -- it is a urgently written thing. any state or federal office, anytime there is an election, if you deny that any male inhabitant being 21 years of age and citizens of the united states, by the way if you have section one, who were citizens of the united states? african-americans, right? if you do anything that does not allow all of the people to vote you will find your basis of representation in the last sentence there in reduced in the proportion by the which the number of male citizens -- what a mess, right?

not beautifully written. how do you translate that? if you do not accept black suffrage then we will eviscerate your power and congress. that is what that section says. why? how does it work? the south action got a bonus for losing. the 3/5 compromise -- they could only count three fist of the enslaved population for the purposes of representation -- abolition now they can count every african-american is a full person for representation. all northerners realized it was going to increase seats in congress. those black people aren't voting, are they? who is going to benefit from this?

white people who will not have to answer to a larger constituency. this was notice, believe me. the 14th amendment went through 70 permit stations. -- 70 different variants. this issue was paramount. how do we control it? that is a stevens figured that if we could do this thing and reduce representation, if they held out black people, what would happen? it would trim congressman from the south from 83 to 47. 83, but if they don't allow black votes, you only get 47 seats in congress. let's look at this further and see why i like this so much. your writing this saying, words matter. they say apportionment will be

determined by the whole number of persons in each state. white persons? -- why persons? why not citizens? why not voters? they went through the thought process. voters was a problem because they relies there was a lot of western migration, especially from new england, and there was a female majority in new england at the time. you institute voters, you will use -- lose representation. what about citizens? black people are ok. why not citizens? who is not a citizen that you might like to count? how about immigrants? where are 85% of the immigrants in the united states at this time?

there in the north, not south bingo. this is beautiful. if you institute all of this, but all of this interplay suddenly reduces seats in congress by those 36 seats and that he is a stevens says that if we can count all the immigrants, we can boost our folks by 15-20 seats. what do you have? a 51-56 seat recline for the south. that is the power of politics, isn't it? that is what is going on in that amendment. section three -- by the way why not go right to black suffrage? in 1866, you could not play that game. the north was not on board yet. pennsylvania's constitution did

not change until 1873. between 1865-18 68, wisconsin minnesota, connecticut, ohio and nebraska, all defeated proposals for franchising blackmails. pennsylvania's laws were way out of step as well. you could see the probably would create if you tried to move to black suffrage. this document shows you the state of the country in 1866. section three this is a section that i would normally lead off and asking my students, can you tell me why this section was the most hated by the south? first of all, what does it say? no person shall be senator -- what it is saying is that in any federal election or in any state election, if there have been

people who had supported the constitution of the united states under the old -- before the war, but had gone over to the confederacy during the war and conducted insurrection, these people would not be allowed to hold any of these public offices none no congressman, no senator, no legislator, none, no agile judges -- federal judges. more importantly, who decide to this goes? congress, by a vote of two thirds of each houses, remove such disability. i won't be able to ask you, but think about why that part is in their. re. that tramples on the pardon powers of the president. who is president? andrew johnson. who is at loggerheads?

the republicans. they are saying that we don't trust you andrew johnson and we will have the power to remove it. confederacy -- the former confederacy hated this. this paved the way for opponents of the confederates at to move into position of political power , and pave the way for black people, yankee immigrants, unionist who had remained faithful during the civil war. you can name it. you can add to that list.

we should not like to be the man to go before the people. no, virginia says. how about section four? this one seems an oculist, but it wasn't. what is it doing? -- this one seems -- it seems the validity, including steps and payments, pensions, bound things shall not be questioned.

why is that in there? i'm going to pay my union veterans pensions, reclaim the war debt, hey all those investors -- pay all of those investors. who will attacks for this -- who will i tax for this? these confederates will he be paying taxes to pay off that debt. it goes on to state neither the united states or any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation occurred in the insurrection or rebuttal. there again, the united states is saying, you can't profit from defeat. you cannot keep your investments. more importantly, we have enough national debt to pay.

we are not going to pay for your debt to fight us. forget about it. that's not going to happen. again, 10 of the 11 states of the former confederacy rejected this amendment and only excepted it when he had to. i have an interior motive for taking us to this exercise. we tend to think of the civil war as something tied in a night, neat bow. -- nice, neat bow. problem solved. one or lost, depending on your perspective. i don't think we as a country, considering how the war trickle beyond chronological boundaries and spilled over seamlessly into what we know as reconstruction there have been numerous efforts

around the country by theose to celebrate. peter has crafted a program next year that deals with the legacies of the war and look at the complicated issues that face the nation and still need to be resolved. the interest in reconstruction around the country is just about nil. there have been numerous efforts to commemorate, but reconstruction has been a tough sell. i mean that point literally. the washington post ended because they could not get any backing. that is a shame. the civil war saved the nation, but reconstruction made the nation.

treason may not have been made as odious as some northerners wanted, but supporters of the confederacy suffered economic and political consequences even if they escaped the hangman's news. the punishment has left its footprint all over one of the cornerstone of the constitution of the united states. thank you. [applause] >> yes ma'am? i have a question about suffrage. after this citizenship and suffrage amendments were ratified, the number of the seats in the house rose for those former confederate states. at the same time, they brought in literacy tests, poll taxes --

>> those are actually in the 1890's. >> maybe i should say this question for next year. the former confederate states needed it? >> they were having their cake, but northerners became disgusted with what they saw that was happening and they stripped all those state statuses and basically enforce things on them like a 14th amendment. after that, there were power struggles, but there were black officeholders who came into power during this window. it took the 1890's to start to beat that back into submission.

as i tell my students, you do not need segregation and this franchise meant if you think you're winning. -- disenfranchisement if you think you're winning. that is when the 1890's become important. >> yeah um, it's me, i understand jefferson davis was about to go home because he couldn't have a trial where he wanted the trial but, i mean, he was so blatantly a part of the war, i mean,, i mean, yeah, a hung jury, but, other than that, to try him for -- >> the judge advocate general hold of the army, there are many

people who argued military commission. if they had put him in a military commission, they would've gotten a conviction. it's not a civil trial. it's not before a jury of tears. the country was worried about that. once you put it into civil court, it becomes an enormous problem. >> martin fleming, north carolina. i'm wondering about men like general pickett who swore an ode to uphold the united states constitution as an officer and then executed 22 captured prisoners in kinston because he felt they were being treasonous. it seems like there were several instances and cases were federal officers executed u.s. soldiers, but they got off scott free. >> you're talking about the book i hope to write someday.

gordon probably knows does much better than i do. you should ask her about it. they flirted with it for a while. they talked about it. it came up occasionally, but frankly in the broader scheme of what was going on, it was hard to move forward with that particular case for a lot of the reasons that i was mentioning. >> david rosen, alexandria virginia. i know this leaping ahead of that in the story, but given the requirement of a two thirds vote to permit x confederate officers and politicians to run, and we know that they did eventually run, how did that two thirds vote happen? when did it happen? >> memory is the first

thing to go, but i cannot remember the first two. [laughter] it's around 1869. there is an action the congress took to waive the liabilities. >> it was the collective action for them all. >> i'm sorry, that's all the time we have. [laughter]