>> historian at james mcpherson's pulitzer prize-winning book was published in 1988. the night hundred page hardback was on the new york times bestseller list for 16 weeks. coming up next on american history tv, james mcpherson in conversation with gettysburg civil war institute director peter carmichael. they discuss how the conflict is still relevant 150 years later. this hour-long program was part of the civil war institutes annual summer conference. i would like to welcome dr. james mcpherson. he is hoping out a number of occasions. as most of you know, he is the henry davis professor emeritus where he has taught history for more than four decades.

he earned his hd at johns hopkins. -- his phd at johns hopkins. he is known for his 2008 efforts tried by war, abraham lincoln as commander-in-chief. his most recent book which we have in the back is the war that forged a nation. why the civil war still matters. today, we will be focusing on the battle cry of freedom. it was published in 1988. 900 pages long, 1500 footnotes but that did not scare away popular audiences. it sold more than 600,000 copies . " a thousand? james: about.

peter: you must have a ton of twitter followers. peter: battle cry of freedom was also in the new york times bestseller list for 16 weeks and hardback and 12 weeks and paper. i believe that outcry freedom stands as ecb will best volume on the civil war. before we delve into the book, i thought that this would be an opportunity for us to address your most recent book. the war that forced a nation, why the war still matters. and because of the tragedy that occurred in charleston, i thought it would be a perfect opportunity for dr. mcpherson to offer some reflections about the

long history of the contemporary issues and speak to the fact that we all here believe the civil war has -- civil war history has great relevance to contemporary society. here's our opportunity. here's dr. mcpherson's opportunity to make some of those connections and open a discussion. i've asked him to reflect on this quote which i will read to you as well. this is from charles pierce. i should add that a staffer wrote this in esquire. people do not want to speak of it because out it, it's because they do not want to follow the story where it is inevitably -- where it inevitably leads. it is because they do not want to follow this crime all the way that to the mother of all american crimes the one that he

gave his life to avenge. what happened on wednesday night was a lot of things. a massacre was only one of them. james: it was a horrible tragedy. i felt my heart sink under me when i heard the news on thursday morning. but clearly, there is a long historical context for what happened there. as well as an individual, psychological context on the part of the alleged killer. this goes back to the issue of slavery which was the issue that brought on the section of conflict that lets the civil war. as he said in his talk this afternoon, one of the consequences of the civil war was a growing and betterments on the part of southern white at

what happens as a consequence of the civil war -- what had happened as a consequence of the civil war which was of course the abolition of slavery. one of the ways that was accomplished with the aid that many slaves gave to the union cause. that not only embittered relationships between the north and south, the consequences of which have persisted over generations, although i think have lessened in the most recent generation, but also it played a role in the and betterments between black and white -- the in betterments -- the embitterment of black-and-white. it led to all of the negative aspects of race relations not only in the south, but in america. this is the latest manifestation of that corrosive social factor

in american history that was a factor in the civil war itself and the consequences of the war. what we need to do is put this in the context of a long history of race relations, a long history of racial exploitation and a long history of racial persecution. this is just the latest manifestation. it is something that we need to continue to address. our grandchildren may be still trying to face the consequences of this 50 years from now at the time of the civil war bicentennial. peter: one of the things is reported of saying -- as saying is that white women are risk. that is certainly a trope that we see. certainly during secession, they

used that rhetoric and then during the postwar. we see that that is acted out. there was a brilliant book "terror and the heart of freedom." it's not murder, it's not rate, it's not sexual intimidation. it raises the points of the troubles and challenges of looking for relevance the. in reconstruction, that was the very basis of it. again, i ask you i'm pressing your little on this. what's we do? here we are having this discussion, thankfully so. we need to talk about this as much as possible. how do we go beyond saying look

there is a historical context we have to be aware of. how does that read -- lead to real activism. james: one of the things we tell her students, it is important to study history and understand history. we cannot understand the modern world in which we live in a mostly understand how came to be that way. the first step in addressing an issue like this is to understand how it came to be through time. that has to be the first step. where we go from there is to try to work out greater tolerance and understanding. greater appreciation for the nature of the society that puts -- that brings about a situation like this, try to address the social problems that underlie the consequences.

peter: as we mentioned you studied at johns hopkins in the late 50's. james: 1958. peter: shortly after that, your mentor was called to a congressional committee to give historical context. as historian are we being utilized that way when it comes to public policy? or are we now on the periphery? i don't know of many historians, academics who were called into that kind of situation. james: as many of you probably know, he had written a book in the 1950's called the strange career of jim crow. it came out in 1955i believe. of course, in 1955, there was the montgomery bus which led to

the rise martin luther king. in 1957 there was the desegregation crisis at little rock central high school. i came to hopkins in december of 1958. the beginning of the second year as desegregation at little rock central high school. he was known for his expertise on the history segregation. he was called to washington to testify before a congressional committee about problems that would be associated with the second year of segregation at little rock central. i was actually supposed to have an appointment with him as a beginning student on the day he was called to washington, so he had to postpone the appointment. that was an eye-opener for me. here was a historian being consulted on the most important social issue of our time.

that opened my eyes to the way in which history could be made relevant to the present and of course the president can be understood if we know the history that led to that. that has been my credo ever cents. the way in which to interest students in history is to demonstrate to them how history is relevant to their lives and their world today. this was one of the most dramatic demonstrations to me as a 21-year-old, i don't think i've yet turned 22 when this happened. it helps to shape my perception of the -- of history. this was an issue that grew out of the racial history of the united states, and especially the south.

it had its roots in the antebellum. and slavery, and came to a crisis point during the civil war and reconstruction. it helps to lead me to that as my subject for historical inquiry area -- historical inquiry. peter: in the beaufort freedom he give you the inside. james: he and richard hofstadter came up with the idea of an oxford history of the united states to be modeled on the oxford history of england which was already in existence. and the idea would be to bring the best and latest professional historical scholarship to a broad public audience in a series of books that would be aimed at the public audience, but based on solid historical dollars shipped. -- historical scholarship.

in 1976, he invited me to participate in the series and out of that eventually grew the battle cry freedom. peter: let's talk about the title. why the title? james: like many authors, i went through a lot of angst about the title for the book. the first thing that anybody knows about the book is its title. i cannot with several ideas for a title, the one that i liked as but nobody else seemed to like was "american armageddon." a great title right? the oxford editor were not very happy with that title. he and its my wife -- he and my

wife were talking about this in my home one day and -- in 1986. we batted around some ideas and one of my favorite songs from the civil war era is the battle cry freedom. it was written by george root in 1862 and quickly became one of the favorite songs in the north. since both sides in the civil war professed to be fighting for their own versions of freedom, i thoughts that that song express this in my wife broke into this conversation and said will lineup of the book that? so she really is entitled to the credit for the title. the editor was not at first enamored of this title, because it was a yankee title and he

grew up in arkansas. he wanted this to be an evenhanded book. he wanted to tell the story without overwhelming antibias, so he was skeptical. -- jp bias --yankee bias. it became popular in the south as well, in this case with somewhat different words. that convinced him that this was an impartial title and it was ok to call it the battle cry freedom. in the preface, i included the confederate wording for the song as well as the union wording for the song. the rest, as they say, is history. peter: why are you leaning toward armageddon? james: i've always been impressed by theodore roosevelt

acceptance speech to the nomination for president by the party. "we stated armageddon and battle for the lord. " this is a real crisis in affairs. a battle between good and evil if you will. and both sides in the civil war thought that this -- thought that this was the battle between good and evil. that's what made the war so violent and so terrible. so i like that idea, but somehow the word armageddon did not seem to carry much cachet with people. james: for commercial reasons right? peter: so your treatments of the

war, even a casual read of this book makes it abundantly clear that labor is the cause of the war area that's the thrust of the argument. when it suggest to some, that this is a war of yankee saints and southern sinners? james: that was why my editor initially was skeptical of this title. it did seem to reflect that point of view. southern sinners and yankee saints. i've been accused of writing from that perspective by some people who have read the book, on the other hand i've been accuse -- gratified by the number of people who say that

they find the book fairly evenhanded and fairly impartial. i'm not sure i always think it's evenhanded in impartial, but i did try to bend over backwards express the points of view of all sides from various perspectives. and to write in such a way as to try to let the story carry its own moral rather than imposing one. peter: we will deftly come back to that. some people have -- what you are trying to convey in terms of the moral consequences of the war for you we certainly want to come back to that. you talk to get about relevancy. i'm just curious, should we not look at the coming of the war as an utter failure of democracy?

how do we open up that discussion because there is a consensus that the democratic process is almost beyond reproach. did we get from battle cry what the revisionist take on the coming of the war is. it's very much an indictment of democracy to some degree. james: the revisionist point of view is that it was a breakdown of democracy, that it was a needless war. that it was brought on by extremists on both sides of the failure of the political process to accommodate the differences in american politics and american democracy. that the issue of slavery and its expansion should have been accommodated by the political process. that it was not, but it was a

failure of democracy and that the issues were not that fundamental and not that serious. therefore, the war was needless. peter: do you think the war could have been avoided? james: some kind of a confrontation, i think was inevitable. i do not necessarily have to take the form that it did. but clearly, as lincoln said after he been elected president and during the secession winter, it has to come sometime. clearly, the fact that it's -- the breakdown of democracy occurred after the election. that was a democratic election. under constitutional procedures. but once i refused to accept the

results of that election. they repudiated the results of that election by saying we're going to leave the union. there was a breakdown in democracy i think. peter: it seems to me that most of our students need to look at that. with more care. i suspect that traditional political history gets short shrift these days. why i think they need to pay close attention to that is that there is a certain cynicism about politics today. so we hear time and time again that this partnership that we are confronting is something new under the sun. if they would just look at party politics in the 1850's, i think that they would have a much better appreciation and a more realistic take on what's possible within a political system in which partisan politics is the driving force.

there's a key issue of relevance. the thing that i struggle with is when you bring this up, we as academics always run the risk of eating seen as political correctness sucks. -- political correctness thugs. i know that you are religious about not doing that, i tries well area. i think we all can appreciate that academics are quick to make some assessments and assumptions and judgments that are not always fair. what does battle cry freedom -- what does it say about the military history of the war? james: i think it tells us that

you cannot understand the military history of the war without putting it into the political context and putting it into the social and economic context of the war. they are all linked together. i tried to betray that in the battle cry freedom. this is not merely a political history of the civil war. i firmly convinced that you cannot understand any aspect of the war military, social, economic or political without recognizing the way in which it is intertwined with the entire story. peter: let's get to a specific. talk about social motivations. how did you treated the battle cry, and in your later work how did you refine or change your ideas? james: i think i focus primarily

on the issues as perceived by the soldiers themselves. and by their leaders in the civil war. the issues of union, slavery emancipation. as i went more deeply into the question of motivation, using civil war soldiers letters and diaries, i became convinced that the story -- that that was part of the story. an important part of the story that had often been neglected by others who looked at the question of soldiers motivation. but that another part of the story has to do with some universality of. the band of brothers idea, the idea that -- of male bonding and primary group provision. -- primary group cohesion.

i also found ideas of victorian ideas of management -- masculinity. of honor and duty, it would be dishonorable to -- you could never hold up your head again if you portrayed cowardice in the face of the enemy and let down your buddies. all of this, i think i tried to fit together. in a way that i had not really done the research sufficiently to do in my first book. i think that's a good example of how additional research can enrich, but also make more complex the story you're trying to tell. peter: in both of your books you focus on soldiers who were the most literate.

and the consequence is that we see soldiers on both sides who are highly ideological and highly motivated as to why they are making these sacrifices. they see a greater cause because they have from political commitment. some of the criticisms -- are that the soldiers you have studied are not representative, and we are missing out of soldiers on the margins. soldiers who were not as literate or privileged. the soldiers who are most vulnerable to deserting or to the psychological stresses of war. james: i tried to address this in the book. i can vest right at the outset that this was based on the more motivated soldiers, the more literate soldiers. but i also discovered among the sample of over a thousand soldiers whose writings i looked

at that their casualty rate was much higher than average. in both the union and confederate armies. these were the fighting soldiers because they are much more likely to suffer casualties, that's what i was trying to do is explain their motivation for fighting. i thought, people are doing more fighting and this is what they have to say about motivation. peter: now we are a nation at war, and nation in which we -- it's invisible to us. it's unthinkable to me that we've reached a point in which the sacrifice of our men and women are fighting abroad -- it does not affect us in our day-to-day lives. we rarely get a glimpse of -- there is a perception that will that the men and women who want to fight for us are victims of

war. war changes people. it changes them in ways that they never couldn't really find a sense of humanity again area and they were all suffering from some form of ptsd. what connections to you make? james: we don't know that much. we know more now than we did maybe 20 years ago when i was doing research for the book. but we still don't know that much about the psychological consequences of war for the two and a quarter million survivors. those who survived the war therefore i am a little bit

uneasy when i see the comparisons between what we know now about the consequences of war for soldiers who experiences and the civil war, because we just all know that much about civil war soldiers. peter: there's a perfect example in which historians i respect their sincerity and compassion and empathy or what men and women are doing today, but they are reading into the past in ways i have to say i think it is flat-out bad history. i think the menu study proves that culture and i do -- ideology can be a buffer to the horrors of war. this political commitment, in fact i just read a letter yesterday of the union soldier in fredericksburg who confessed to his wife that he was suffering what we would call battle fatigue. it was a mystery to him, he begged her not to tell anyone area the very next letter to his father, he wrote about the grand spectacle of fighting area the

point here is that the victorian assumptions of war are obviously a lot different than our assumptions. historically there very important. the point of saying about the war itself, i sent as he flat out, did the north conduct the war justly? james: harry stout is a historian of american religion. he called his own moral history of the civil war. he talked about's the just war theory, going all the way back to saint augustine. he talked about the way in which there are two ways to address

the question of a just war area one as the reasons for going to war in the first place, then he came up with the conclusion that the only legitimate reason -- the only just reason for going to war was self-defense. a defensive war is a just war. the other dimension of just war theory is -- he came out with the idea that the confederates were fighting a just war in the sense that they were defending themselves against invasion. my answer to that would be who started the war? you could define the union as -- motive for going to war is defensive. defending the black, defending the union. the conduct of the war i think is what your interested in, and

that's what this book was mostly about. he indicted the north and abraham lincoln for conducting a war that was disproportionate in its conduct to the goals of the war. the destruction in the south the vandalism the plunder. the suffering imposed on the south. curiously enough, he also said that northern soldiers it was the black soldiers who were fighting a just war and they were fighting for freedom. my answer to that would be all northern soldiers were fighting for freedom. as far as the destruction which touts condemned. as being excessive beyond the requisites of a just war, by far

the greatest disruption of resources was the abolition of slavery area he said that was the only thing that made it a just war on the part of the north. well, i see an inconsistency therebetween condemning the destruction of southern plantations and seven factories in southern railroad and farms on the one hand but praising the abolition of slavery on the other because it's all about peace. clearly their excesses. in sherman's march the south carolina, maybe in sheridan's destruction in the shenandoah valley. clearly that goes beyond the justness of the war. peter: were they really an excess? they didn't line up civilians and shoot them. james: that's another dimension.

in world war ii we want to say that strategic bombing was part of a just war on the part of the allies, that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. in the civil war, very few civilians were killed by actions of the soldiers themselves. i've come down on the side that while their excesses clearly i'm sort of on the side that this was a hard war and that making it hard war was part of the policy of winning the war. and while there were some excesses, it nevertheless was largely within the bounds of a proportionate response to the demands of the war. peter: when we take a few questions from the audience now? james: --

guest: given all of the events on civil war memory to come out in recent decades, if you were writing the end about our today which read it differently? james: i think i would write something differently. i would probably give more space to the homefront, to the impact of the war on families, on women. this is not totally absent from it the book by any means, but much of the scholarship in the last 25 years has focused on these issues the impact of the

war on communities and on societies. i would try to incorporate what bit about scholarship i could in the book. problem with that is that it would now be a thousand or 1100 pages long. so i don't quite know how i would handle it. that would be my general approach. guest: 20 years ago, you wrote an essay titled what's the matter with history about the disconnect between academic historians in the public. in your opinion, has the situation changed? james: within the academic community it not changed as much as i would like. i think that the academic reward system still goes to so-called cutting-edge scholarship. too many -- too much emphasis on

more and more detail on less and less, more and more creativity and interpretation, not enough on clarity of presentation. but i think in terms of the wider net of historical writing it has improved over the last 25 years. i regret to say that a lot of the really good work that reaches a broad audience not only in civil war scholarship, but in history in general is not done by academic historians. stone by people like david mccullough. robert carroll they are reaching out. they are reaching out to a broad public audience in a way that i think has made history more and more relevant and more more

importance to a broader audience. but i regret to say it's not my academic colleagues who are doing this. peter: i'm going to disagree with you little. i think a lot of things that come out. a good academic run as a thousand copies. but, i think there's a real synergy between academic historians in public historians. i think there's a place for that focused narrow work, i think of some of these other scholars are building upon what scholars are doing down in the trenches. i agree with your point, much of what we see especially in scholarly journals unfortunately does not resonate or connect with the public. i'll even take a step further, you are good example of this. i will know when you brought your first fencing class to

gettysburg i think that it had a profound impact on your thinking about the common soldier, it also led to activism and no reservation. you are a classic example. these are academics who have gone outside college classrooms. they have reached public audiences on a range of levels including preservation. i think the recess history illustrates how academic historians and public dust public historians. not sure what they expect, i don't know what the bar is. it can tell you this. i attribute that to i would say a growing alliance amongst all of us to re-energize my comments and responses that we learned from our audiences and we learned from our -- i think the

one 50th demonstrates that. they're not looking at the hardbacks. we did not repeat the centennial. guest: what's the new direction of scholarship in civil war and reconstruction history? james: i think it's a much greater emphasis on social history. on the activities of ordinary people how large historical events in finnish and impact them. clearly and reconstruction we're going to learn as we cap of the last 30 or 40 years it will be even more so over the next 10 years, the way in which

experience impacted race relations, impacted the black community and the black church. black education in the south. gender relations, as they interact with race relations as we were talking about earlier. i think that is going to be the direction of the next 10 years as it has been for the most part of the past 10 or 20 years as well. james: we have a good number of muscle students are going to be going off to college. presumably be interested in history, and we have a good number of college students here to who are majors in history, what advice would you get to somebody say 18 years old or so who is interested in being a history major? peter: study. work.

abraham lincoln was once asked how a young person who wanted to become a lawyer to become a lawyer. he said you have to study. you have to work. i think that's the answer for somebody who wants to become a story and to area it's a great profession, teaching is a great profession. research and writing is a very rewarding process, but it is also very hard work. you have to understand and appreciate the degree to which it's going to involve -- sometimes very lonely work. especially research. >> do have a routine? james: i'm not very well disciplined in that. i proceed on an ad hoc basis. and deadlines approach, i work

harder. >> in battle cry of freedom, you wrote that you thought the south had a chance to win its independence and you cite for. the contingency that went against the south. here's the question, do still have the same opinion and would you add to or subtract from or keep the same for contingency periods? james: i would keep the same for. i have not changed my mind about that. i think that's my arguments about that still are defensible. the first of those for turning points was one in favor of the confederacy. it looked in the spring of 1862 the north was about to win the war. they had won a succession of important battles in the western

theater and along the south atlantic coast. mcclellan looked like he was closing in on richmond. the confederacy, jefferson davis was depressed. they had loaded the archives and confederate gold on trains to take it out of richmond because it looked like richmond was about to fall. the war might have been over in the spring of 1862, but as everybody knows jackson and me and the confederate counteroffensive change that but that was the first turning point. the second one was in two. the third one was gettysburg and its -- vicksburg. the last one was sherman's capture of atlanta and other union victories in the fall of 18 six four, and lincoln's reelection. each of those collected confederate momentum, but it looks like it might be moving toward some kind of victory.

the turned around. the final and turned around permanently. i would stick with that. even today 2728 years later. >> we're coming out of commemorative. of the civil war. what do you think is the great challenge for the way in which we remember the civil war? james: i guess the challenge is to continue to try to understand its impact -- it's continuing impact on america today. the very issue we started out with, this discussion about what happened in charleston. clearly the civil war was the

most important event in our history in shaping the world in which we live. not only by preserving the united states as one nation, that was deeply contested until 1865. not only for making 611865, but earlier as well. abolishing slavery, the issue that's had made a mockery of american professions of being a beacon of liberty -- liberty. those two issues are really important and our identity and what kind of society we are. i think that the civil war in another respect shaped modern america up until 1861, 1865, there were really to ideas about

what kind of a country that should be area whether it should be a society based on democratic capitalism and the urbanizing and industrializing or one based on a kind of seeing your real agricultural society, plantation society based on forced labor. us today, it seems inevitable that the democratic entrepreneurial capitalist model would prevail. but that was not so clear to people in the 1850's. by any means. the civil war really determines what kind of a society for better or for worse. it's not entirely for the better. in many ways it may be for the worst, but at least we need to

understand the way in which the civil war helps put america on the path we've been on our the past hundred 50 years. i think that's what is really important about studying the civil war. >> to ask another question about changes in historiography. given all of the work that has been done on civil war memory recently, would you change the place that you chose to end the battle cry freedom? would you change the ending in any way as reflected on it today? james: i'm not sure i understand the important that question. for one thing this was a volume of the series and i was told that i was writing about the. from 1848 to 1865. so i ended in 1865. [applause]

[laughter] james: if i were writing a book entirely shaped by my own concept of what the book up to be i think the reconstruction. is an integral part of the story of the civil war. clearly as we are heading now and see the sesquicentennial reconstruction, that is one of the directions to get back to an earlier question of which reconstruction books or studies will take. to see it as part of the larger story of the civil war. you're quite right, the question is quite right to suggest that the story is still unfinished in 1865. the three great constitutional amendments that wrote the civil war, only one of them has been

ratified in 1865. the story of the civil war is also the story of the 14th and 15th amendments and the way in which those two amendment which is the basis of more jurisprudence than almost any other part of the constitution, even today the way in which those two reconstruction amendments really are part of the larger story of the war. clearly i think that is one of the directions that scholarship is going to go. in the next decade or two. >> what type of nation do you think would have emerged as the south had won the war? james: we would have been two nations. i think the confederacy would

have persisted for a good many years, maybe a good many decades as a slave society. i also think that's the precedents of a successful secession of disunion might have caused further secessions, greater movements for disunion. the populace in the 1890's rebelling against the eastern banks that were oppressing them. maybe there would have been a populist republic in the midwest or the far west. who knows? the united states might've broken up into several different countries. clearly that was one of the fears or one of the reasons why

the northern people and the lincoln administration refused to accept the legitimacy of secession. it was a question of the fatal precedent. that it would end the idea of the united states as a nation. but nobody can say for sure what was likely to have happens clearly for a few decades there would have been no united states in the same way that it existed before 1860. peter: i'm going to put you on the battlefield. by now, we have little bit of the next -- and session about gettysburg. with several monuments.

with the 1913 reunion. on the other side, we have the high watermark monument. do you have the july 3, 1863 that? you will these other layers of history, have you deal with that? especially the issue of reconciliation and the fact that this war is often in tension with that. there's a lot embedded in my question. on the ground, how do engage your students and talk to them about these complex historical narratives? james: i was involved in the planning for the new visitor center here gettysburg.

i'm a member of the board of the gettysburg foundation. i worked with john watcher and the others who planned the new visitor center. along with other historians and along with scott hardwick. i strongly supported the idea that the main concepts of understanding the importance of gettysburg is not the high watermark of the confederacy it's the new birth of freedom. that lincoln mentioned in the gettysburg address. i think that's what i try to deal with when talking about's high watermark, the meaning of gettysburg.

my clearly was a high watermark for the confederacy. that's still an important part of understanding the battle. especially as military dimensions. it was lincoln who defined the real meaning of gettysburg. peter: i'm going to take that elite into my final question. to criticism of your work by a historian. to southern historian has dabbled in civil war history. this is from a piece about the civil war. but even i served. he's afraid to ken burns as well as mcpherson.

anti-slavery, progress, war and national identity intertwined at the same time of the civil war so that each element became inseparable from the others. the story has become common sense to americans. emancipation war, nation and progress. all part of one story. i would have to that, this is the new birth of freedom. had he about that as a criticism of your work? james: it's a description of my work. clearly he has nailed it. this is the way i do see the civil or. all of these things intertwined. i don't's make any apologies for it. peter: i'm struck. a gone back and taken a look at

the piece. his great scholar. and you use the word contingency in your final conclusion. he hates contingency. as i looked at it i said this is really not much different than what you are suggesting. we talked a little bit about this area this is a concern of mine, i suspect -- i actually am guilty of this. i was somewhat seduced by his criticism. civil war history opera fee is has taken a new turn in a new revision area and be honest with you. i see elements of the start turn. it's already in your book. i'm not saying we can build on that, but this criticism seems badly misplaced to me.

peter: i'll agree with that. [laughter] james: what about the start turn? -- this dark turn? this is a very fun piece which you think about this turn? james: i'm not sure i quite understand what you mean by dark turn? peter: the civil war emerges from another messy ghastly part of conflict between two parties who were both to some degree in the wrong. historians writing in this pain underscore the wars bleakest battles while exposing and underlining that there are few winners and fewer heroes.

james: the idea that the civil war really was -- it's a kind of neo-revisionism. it was useless because it didn't accomplish anything. peter: roughly 700,000 casualties. is it worth freedom for african-americans that some would say with second place? james: it comes out of the skepticism about what will -- whether the civil war did accomplish a new birth of freedom. if one looks back at what the slaves themselves thought about freedom in 1865, one of black historian wrote about freedom in the 1900. clearly it was better than a slavery.

in my opinion, the civil war accomplished a huge amount in terms of changing the direction of this country, largely for the better. not that there weren't horrible aspects of the reconstruction period and race relations. i think that slavery was a terrible violation of the professed ideals on which this country was founded. bring that to a end in the civil war was a huge accompaniment. peter: before we close, i need to confess that we have had e-mail correspondence before the. it scented -- it centered on the wardrobe. i said to my wife, i need a new armani suit. you were interviewing a guy who has the blitzer.