1861, who do you want to lead your army, grant or lee. >> well, of course, if we're actually in the moment, then lee's the only one to consider because grant is an unknown leather worker out in ohio. and indeed of course lincoln will actually offer command of the eastern army -- not of all armies but of the army to be built in washington to lee with yet another promotion to brigade general. i mean lee has hit the time. that's the pinnacle of his career. but of course he couldn't accept it. if you're asking who's the better general, happily, in almost a year since my book came out, no one has yet asked me that question. and it had to happen here. there's no basis for making a fair or valid comparison between them because their experiences are not the same. you can take a car and measure it against another car at certain speeds and you can determine with repeated

experiments which one is the better. but there's never a moment in which grant and lee face exactly the same circumstances with the same resources at hand, and even if there were, you'd have to repeat that several times to come up with any kind of meaningful conclusion. from hindsight, i will tell you if the republic were ever in such dire straits that it turned to me to determine who to put in command of the armies, i would probably select grant -- but, not because i think he's the better general. but because grant is 15 years younger, he's in the best health of his life. lee feels his health and his strength and his abilities failing him. his vision is not good. he feels bad much of the time. grant has the emotional support of a magnificent marriage, lee does not. grant is by nature an optimist. lee is not. i think all of those factors

would argue that grant, all other things being equal, would probably have the better chance of bringing you victories. but of course, that's no guarantee. >> thank you. >> okay. you said that grant -- when it came to his religion, that grant was silent. do you think in your opinion than grant may have been like an agnostic? >> question is might grant have been an agnostic. probably not. but my guess is he might have been sort of a social christian. i don't know. after the war -- well, actually, when he's in galina, illinois in 1860 and '61 until he goes off to war, he does form a pretty close friendship with a local methodist minister. i've forgotten the man's name. and they will remain friends for years, through the war and afterward. and grant as president will occasionally attend methodist services in washington. indeed i think it is on the way

back from attending church that grant gets pulled over in his carriage for a speeding ticket. he liked speed in his carriage. he does attend methodist services thereafter. whether that was to keep julia happy or he felt some spirit all investment in it, again he's silent so we can only surmise. >> thank you. >> could you comment on grant's issue of general order number 11? >> could i comment on grant and the so-called jew order. there is an excellent book on that that came out about three years ago by jonathan sarna, i believe it is. briefly the background of course is that grant's in command in mississippi. he has a large command at this point. traders, merchants, are trying to get into the south to get southern goods, cotton, et cetera, that they can take back north to sell. unfortunately, grant's own

father is trying to bring people in to capitalize on his son's power which really irritates him. jesse root grant is a gigantic horse's ass. he really is. he's a thorn in his father's side throughout his life. it is an unusual relationship and it was not a good one for grant. some these were jews. most were not. grant also is somewhat subject to the influence of his greatest associate, william t. sherman, who is avowedly antisemitic. somehow or other grant comes to this point where he decides he's going to clear all of the traders out of his department and he issues order number 11 which essentially says all of the jews and other kinds of traders must get outside these departmental limits immediately. he was angry i think at his father who was trying to get around him. he's being fed these notions by

sherman. he's -- i don't know if he's instantly regretful that he does it, but he will spend much of the rest of his life apologizing for it repeatedly. and when he is in fact president, he will try to introduce jews into his administration. he will visit the holy land, in part as kind of a symbolic apology for that. so whether grant was really anymore antisemitic than perhaps the average midwesterner of his time was, i don't know. but he was always sorry. that's one of the few things grant apologized for. >> you said that lee didn't have very many friends other than cousins. although he referred to jackson as his right-hand man and was distraught after his death. what about not only stonewall jackson, but james longstreet after that? >> i'm sorry, the last part of your question? >> what about james longstreet?

after jackson's death, he became very close with him? >> lee, of course -- the question is what about stonewall jackson and james longstreet as friends for lee. i'm talking about intimate friends, the kinds you share your hopes and fears, your experiences and your sentiments, your feelings of insecurity, everything else, with. there is no question there was no relationship like that with jackson certainly. lee i think admired jackson. i'm not sure if he understood them. he did know that jock son brought his him victories but the two were almost di diametrically opposed in most other things. i think there was great respect but i see no sign of great friendship. longstreet -- i don't know, longstreet is kind of a mystery because lee will complain about longstreet after the war. longstreet will complain about lee during the war, and after the war as well.

longstreet's headquarters were always supposedly closest to lee. some people have maintained that's so lee could keep an eye on him. i don't know if that's true or not. i think there was some kind of personal regard there, but again, i don't think there is any sort of irntimate sort of friendship. >> thank you. >> since we're here at gettysburg, i think we should say that one general that general lee did have respect for, apparently, was george gordon meade. meade said he will commit no error or mistake in my front. did he not say that? >> yeah. i've forgotten just who it is he says that to. they had known each other in the old army before the war. i think lee had a pretty fair regard for him. i'm sure you all know the great zero when meade comes to visit lee and said good lord, lee, you got a lot of great hair there.

lee says, well, meade, you have to account for some of it -- or maybe it is the other way around. meade didn't have any hair at all at that point probably. >> i was going to ask you about that, but it was the mason brothers who jesse grant showed up with in tennessee, not mississippi. >> i'm sorry. i misspoke. west tennessee. right. >> cincinnati. >> lee -- they were professional acquaintances but i don't think any of them were necessarily intimate friends. i think it the loss of jack mackey who was practically lee's alter ego in a way, they were deeply close. i think the loss of jack mackey may have kind of emotionally closed lee up to more friendships because that really hurt deeply. yes, sir. >> jack, this is just out of curiosity. based with what you shared with us tonight about mary lee and her personality, did she have an lot in common with abe lincoln's wife, mary? >> question is did mary lee have a lot in common with mary

lincoln? well, certainly outwardly you could see some of it. there is -- explosive is too loaded a word but there is a volatile temper and temperament. certainly a want of frugality. what a nice way to put it. beyond that, i mean i don't pretend to understand what really was -- what mary lincoln's psychosis was, if you can call it that. but there's no question they were both difficult for their husbands. they both caused their husbands embarrassment. worse, they caused their husbands embarrassment in front of their professional peers and colleagues. they would not have been good political wives, as is indeed mary was not. >> thank you all again very much.

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