>> he is a reconstruction expert. into some of the things of the postwar era. i'm confident he is up to the task and not just because he's my boss as chairman of the museum's board. dr. edward ayers is the founding chairman and served previously on the boards of the american civil war center and the museum of the confederacy and for that matter, the library of virginia. over the past eight years, he has become the face of public history. and of the civil war says

question tennial -- says uestion tennial -- sesqetennial in richmond and serving as the future of richmond's past. he retired from the university of richmond last year and is now the tucker boatwright professor of humanities and professor emeritus at the university of richmond. before he began his pioneering work with the valley of the shadow project at u.v.a. and the studies of the civil war period in augusta county, virginia, and franklin county, pennsylvania, ed was known primarily as a historian of the postwar sound. his first book was about crime and punishment in the 19th century south and his 1992 book, the promise of the new south. life after reconstruction was a finalist for the pulitzer prize that year. this makes ed the ideal speaker to set the stage for this year's symposium with his talk

entitled reckoning with econstruction on its sesqecentennial. ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce ed ayers. [applause] ed: good morning, great to see you. i came in with two weeks from california which is long enough to become fully acclimated to the west coast and its time. i'm ignoring the fact i got up at 2:30 in the morning buy lodgeical time to be here with you but that's how much i care about you and the subject and the civil war museum. now, people know some things about reconstruction and many of them are partially true. i found that many audiences, even those who come to a talk on some facet of the american civil war as well as those who are fresh membership in college readily admit they don't really have the full story of reconstruction fully nailed. and here's what i think the

common stock of knowledge looks like. if you know more than this, you're in the red zone. you're in the bonus and way ahead of things. here's what i think of people know. reconstruction followed the civil war and apparently lasted 1 years, because that's when volume 1 of u.s. history text book ends and volume 2 begins. i sometimes thought reconstruction happened over the winter break when i talk about this kind of thing. it obviously was a tragedy that abraham lincoln was assassinated, in part because andrew johnson was terrible, just terrible. they know that black people briefly held political power, a fact that used to be considered terrible by almost white americans but now is considered a very long foreshadowing of the progress of the civil rights movement. people know the ku klux klan arose during reconstruction, a fact that used to be considered good by many white americans but now is bad.

some people know some of the particulars. they know that the promise of 40 acres and a mule is made and rescinded along the way and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution appeared at some point in the process. people sometimes know that the black codes tried to erase as much of the gains of emancipation as possible and that reconstruction ended with a corrupt bargain in 1877. people think they know southern history pretty much stopped after reconstruction except for a few episodes of particularly hericive violence except for the 1960's and another text book to give another example about the south and in between it was poor and static and nothing much really happened despite the 600 pages i wrote about it. the cast of characters has remained much the same throughout several generations now, even as the revision constantly has been changing the role of heroes and villains.

reconstruction used to be considered a failure because it happened at all and now it's considered a failure because it did not go far enough. and all along we have in our minds no matter what we think, the same pictures that came from "gone with the wind" in which we tell the stories of reconstruction, and probably enough from the viewpoint of a once privileged southern white woman who has to make dresses out of the curtains in her house. i think that's what people know about reconstruction. and i say that just from having given lots of talks about it. and that's ok. i think that what people -- and it's at a will kind of depressing. the days suggest that bounded period with a clear beginning and end but the story between that beginning and that end doesn't have many elements of a

story. as soon as lincoln is assassinated the story line gets tangled and starts heading in a lot of different directions at the same time. the main characters seem to come and go pretty quickly. after a dramatic cameo even andrew johnson seems to fade away. the republicans today, people have a hard time attaching a name or face to the radical republicans even though tommy lee jones with his face and hair of thaddeus stevens also gives people a way to remember at least one radical republican. most people would be hard-pressed to name any of the african-american office holders that we know emerged during reconstruction or the white office holders who replaced them. now, this lack of a narrative arc is one reason i think that people do not even think they know anything about reconstruction. there's no simple framework of the sort that people are used to making sense of the civil war with, even if they imagined

that gettysburg was just conveniently after it is all over happens to have been in the middle. that's what the people imagine a narrative arc or at least have that and there's no sense in the reconstruction of the progress and geography of sherman's march. it seems to be happening all the time everywhere. there seems to have been largely chaos sliced in different shapes for different southern states. each one of which filed its own chronology. somehow reconstruction involves fundamental changes and yet lasted two years in some places and 12 in others. i just give up. it's too complicated. so it was such a large, important and yet amorpsed topic and attempting to push the dates and found riss out. some historians see the battle of reconstruction beginning with the effect of the founding of the nation with the compromises on slavery built this problem into the country

to begin with. some people say the struggles of reconstruction have not yet ended and that we're still playing out the fundamental decisions that had to be fought over then. some see it as an episode as a global struggle over slavery and its aftermath. they're struck by how much this is like places -- other places that had confront into slavery and all these perspectives have a lot to teach us and that's what it is doing is expounding the boundaries of reconstruction and this morning as the first speaker i feel a certain responsibility to ground things in place and time and bring some clarity to this so the conversations over the rest of the day make more sense. i'll have to admit, i followed the instructions that wade and john had given me more carefully last night when i had a draft of this in which i sort of sacrificed a lot of my time to give an overview of the story of reconstruction, and i

woke up at some point in the night and said, you know, let's don't do that. let's try a different strategy. so this is a strategy that seemed so good to me when it was 2:30 in the morning my time. i want to focus where we might still see what we know as reconstruction taking form. with the issues of slavery's end, of african-american rights, of a reintegration of the southern states into the union, of the redefinition of the fundamental law of the land, of the role of partisan politics and of the centrality of violence. konkoski gave our title the road from a mat axe -- ao mat ex-- of appomatax. those a title of those who know they're interested in the civil war but not so much in reconstruction. john would probably agree with me the metaphor of a road is

somewhat misleading in this case. rather than a road with a clear direction and some steins along the way, instead the decade following the largest rupture in u.s. history could better be thought of as the intersection of many roads, intersecting at unpredictable angles and no traffic control. the catch is that we have to map them all if we hope to get across this piece of history in one piece. so here's my point this morning. i think you see the first convergence of the road that will become reconstruction in the summer of 1864, especially august 1864. that's a strangely specific date i realize so let me see if i can make the case for you. at the beginning of the summer of 1864, no president of the united states had won a second term since andrew jackson.

isn't that amazing? that's a bunch in between. and it's not clear that abraham lincoln is going to be the first one. more than 30 years since you've had somebody succeed himself and nothing could be taken for granted. at the convention in june of the republican party, they quickly renominated abraham lincoln but made some other important changes. they placed governor andrew johnson of tennessee as the vice-presidential candidate. now, johnson was a hero to republicans. the only senator from the south who had stayed loyal to the united states at the time of is he suggestion. afterwards he served as governor of tennessee in the federally occupied state demonstrationing a path towards reunion, trying to. in that role, johnson faced great bitterness and violent threats but he never backed down. a self-taught tailor and

politician from the strongly unionous mountains of east tennessee where they talked like this, andrew johnson seemed the very embodiment of what the republican party of the future needed to be. a vehicle for the reunification of the nation on the principles won by the war. people sometimes wonder how did andrew johnson, if so terrible, get on the stage in the first place? because he was seen as a crucial part of what was going to follow the war. and to signal the forward-looking posture and win over voters kept school of republican purposes and rhetoric, the party changed its name to the national union party. now, that move was both audacious and cautious. the party was claiming itself to be the whole of all truly loyal men. we were the national party, we're the union party. if you're not those things, you shouldn't be voting at all.

but the return -- but the renaming also was a way to make the purposes of the party more palatable to voters who had come to identify the republicans with a single-minded dedication to defeating and punishing the lave holders of the south. with andrew johnson's nomination the leaders of the national union party wanted to signal they were primarily concerned with putting the united states back together. this time on a firmer foundation of universal freedom. the party would be so strong and so inclusive that it would not be a party at all. but a reflection of the highest ideals of the united states. they denied the legitimacy of partisan conflict in the middle of the nation's greatest crisis. the national union party had numerous advantages. the united states army dwarfed any previous manifestation of federal power, patron age and

communication. with more than half a million voting men gathered in the army, the party and power infused the purposes of the nation with the purposes of the party. soldiers received a steady stream of pamphlets and copies of the pro administration, "harper's weekly," paid for by reporters of the party but distributed through the national post office. victories on the battlefield and victories for the nation became victories for the party. the kratz hated this. the democrats centered at the new party. the union party convention was no convention at all and merely a recoreonation of king abraham and reaching into a familiar bag of villification, this might be useful to remember, that this is what people said about abraham lincoln. he is totally unfit for the position he holds.

he is weak, incapable, vacillating, a time-server without either wise comprehension of the present or segacious forecast of the future. lincoln's records seem clear. these are quotes, by the way, i should be very clear. quote, through his mismanagement and imbekillity, through three years of bloody civil war the resores of a country are wasted and thousands of lives sacrificed and millions of treasures squandered, leaving the prospect of peace and a restored union as far as human foresight can go as distant now as at the beginning. end quote. far from living up to the ideals of pure patriotism, lincoln has lent himself to the schemes of the bold bad men around him in whose hands he is a mere tool to carry out their wicked designs. so this is in the middle of the

greatest crisis the united states has ever faced. clasp see everybody just hands and say let's work together. the democrat key charge, lincoln and his party, whatever they called himself, had, quote, prostituted the war from the high and noble object from which it was commenced to restore the union to the form created in a great constitution. quote, through the basis and most innoble partisan purposes, end quote. in other words, prosecuting the war until slavery had been apolished. this was the conflict after three years of bloody war as late as 186 , this is how unresolved things are. the democrats, all within their power to generate party feeling and spirit and devotion. there probably never had been an election in which people were more energized and went to more talks and parades. the republican party just

denied the legitimacy of party politics during wartime and said look, this is as close to treason as you can get. they're mobilizing to limit the outcome of this war. the north needed to be unified and instead the democrats are bringing division. the democrats said how can you be any more partisan than you are, you republicans? you're deployed every part of partisan machinery to great profit and advantage even as you criticized us. the nickname the democrats had for the republicans in this election were the shoddy-ites because they used their party to be selling substandard goods to the united states army and pocketing the money. that's how the democrats said you guys are just hypocrites. you're making a mint off this politically and materially and saying it's illegitimate for us to challenge you. wartime provided unprecedented

opportunities for political patronage. republicans boasted of their nonpartisanship even as the democrats saw partisan purpose in every utterance of abraham lincoln, including the gettysburg address and in every action of congress. now, lincoln watched, concerned as the effects of the war in the summer of 1864 wore on the newly named party. grant fought with fearful sacrifice not far from here without attaining any material victories after that convention and election approached. sherman struggled outside of atlanta was ever longer and more exposed lines of supply and support. a visitor saw lincoln's distress during a visit that summer. the president, he said, was greatly depressed, for lincoln was human, as are all men, differing only in degree. and it was in late august 23 that lincoln wrote a memo and

asked all the members of his cabinet to sign without reading it saying it's likely it's not going to win and if we don't, i will support as a cabinet member the man who is. so in late august, in 1864 after all the supposed turning points of american civil war have come and done, everything still hangs in the balance. late august, 1864. now, the president thought even at this time about what would it cost to actually compensate the slave holders to end the war? he told a confidant that he was thinking about paying $400 million to do this. here's his calculation, we're spending $4 million a day to fight the war, he said. and there's no prospect of the war ending in the next 100 days. he put that away and never presented it but to give you

some sense of what lincoln is thinking in august of 1864. now, the democrats of the north remain surprisingly strong for a party that had been branded as traitors and out of national office for four years. they sustained newspapers in almost every county of the north and office holders and showed strength throughout the north. they held 45% of northern voters. they published tracks and kept powerful speakers in the field. thousands of people who might waiver. in all the situation, the vote by soldiers in the field could well prove critical. the republicans had clear advantages in this front. the sort of men likely to vote republican, young, protestant, anglo-saxon, were heavily represented in the army. and the risk and sacrifice demanded by military service bound the soldiers together and

to their officers as well as to the nation's commander in chief. while the prewar army had been dominated by the democrats, by 1864 the republicans enjoyed clear sentencing. and general support of president lincoln and his cabinet into a democratic generals remain. back home the democrats relentless criticism of the war effort often founded the soldiers reading those papers in the trenches outside of petersburg or in the camps outside atlanta, like criticism of them. why can't you beat these damn rebels? what's wrong with us? shouldn't we just strike peace? shouldn't we say enough is enough? and in such an environment, many lifelong democrats decided they better remain quiet there in the camps, around the campfires. they would write letters to sympathetic relatives back home but they would be quiet.

when it came time to vote and everybody could see how you're voting and you were voting in your camps, some chose not to vote at all, while others decided that they would vote for lincoln, the national union party, in this election to show their support and bring this war to a close and then they would think about what they might do next time. now, the democrats had not held their nominating convention through all of this until late august, just as the military situation and the national morale had reached their lowest point, probably in the entire war. and so the democrats are heading off to chicago feeling good about their odds. they were emboldened. now, they were divided between the war democrats and peace democrats, the former supporting the war for the union but not for emancipation and the latter calling for a cessation of hostilities and negotiation of peace, acknowledging the confederacies independence. after a bitter struggle between the factions, the convention named george mcclellan for president.

somebody else we've also learned he was terrible. though he had been removed from command by president lincoln, the young 37 years old, if he'd won had been the youngest president we've ever had. and very appealing and very popular, george mcclellan became the nominee. the convention also bridged a platform that declared justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for cessation of hostilities. think how weird this is, you having the man who just a few years before had been the most prominent member of the united states army is now in a party that calls for abandoning the war. now, despite mcclellan's popularity, the democrats confronted two problems. first, immediately after they declared a war a failure, the news came from sherman, quote, atlanta is hours and fairly won. the democratic delegates

returned home, one observer said, they found every center of population illuminated at night and full of waving flags by day as the people hurled back upon them their fierce resentment at the declaration of the failure of war and demand for peace with compromise at rebellion. so literally on the day right after they say the war is a failure and it's very obvious hat it is, atlanta takes it to sherman. mcclellan accepted the democrats nomination but rejected the peace plan of a platform and did so in language, quote, i could not look in the face of my gallant comrades who had survived so many bloody battles and tell them that their labors and the sacrifices of so many of our slain and wounded brethren have been in vain, that we had abandoned that union for which we have so often paralleled our lives. while americans, he said, would quote, hail with unbounded joy the permanent restoration of

peace on the basis of the union of the conti substitution, the fact that no peace could be permanent without union. nerd, the candidate explicitly rejected the platform of the party that had dominated him. in a letter that everybody read and then said plainly, i'm pretty sure that these are the views of the convention. ok. no, they're not. but the democrats had a campaign with a candidate who rejected a platform in which he'd been nominated but did so without frankly acknowledging that fact. while sherman's victim atlanta played a critical role in improving the republican fortunes, virginia remained a problem. the fact was that the largest united states army under its most celebrated general had not destroyed the largest confederate army under its most celebrated general. so before the republicans get all spun up about having won the war, there is that fact. with grant and lee locked in

stalemate the fighting in the shenandoah valley became evermore important. for most in the north, georgia was a long way away. but the valley of virginia ran directly to the capital in washington, d.c. and only months before, early threatened washington, d.c. and using that same valley the confederates had come into the whole of the head of the republican party of the state of pennsylvania, one of the most important parties, and burned its farm to the ground and the entire town in which he lived. suggesting that the united states army is not fully in control of the situation. in the summer of 1864. so victories of phillip a. sheridan over early in september and october were especially important in the upcoming election. in the valley, a place of humiliation for one general after another as late as the summer of 1864, it had suddenly become the scene of immediate

unqualified, repeated and glorious victory, as the union army went wheeling through winchester and as sheridan made the final ride not nearly as long as the famous poem said but still pretty darn far, coming into winchester to help win the victory. now, sheridan's victories in the valley provided something else that many people in the north longed for, the destruction of the bountiful landscape that sustained the confederate army for so long. months before sherman's march introduced americans to the systematic destruction of barns, mills and fields, sheridan's burning of the valley demonstrated a new resolve of what would be involved in actually establishing dominion over the rebellious south and a new willingness to undermine the material and spiritual resources of confederate civilian. just as important, sheridan's victories marked a victory over the guerrillas that had bedeviled the union army in the

shenandoah valley right up to the time of the election, not just most of these raiders but all kinds of guerrillas up and down the valley, suggesting that extra partisan violence by men not in uniform could play a very important role in whatever else was to happen, but sheridan defeats the guerrillas, defeats early, burns parts to the valley. here's what you need to remember. sherman's burning did not begin until after the election. so if there's a referendum on union policy, it's about the shenandoah valley in the election of 1864, not about georgia. now, watching all of this, it's hard to imagine just how fast this is all coming, in october, president lincoln calculated a likely votes in the electoral college that would determine the presidency and was in that

telegraph office you remember from the rincon movie calculating this and he did the math and came out saying that the winner of the election would probably need 116 electoral votes to be elected. his calculation showed he had about 120 and that mcclellan had 114. so one or two large states, new york, pennsylvania, could change everything. he knew that if the voters voted in 1864 as they had in the state elections of 1862, he would lose 127 electoral votes to 86. it wasn't that long before and now you've got grant locked in stalemate outside of richmond. lincoln in any case did not merely worry about winning the election, because he was looking ahead already. he knew that he needed a moral victory for the enormously important work that lay ahead.

to achieve that victory, he needed the two largest states in the union, new york and pennsylvania, and both were too close to call before the election. so the election of 1864 was actually two elections simultaneously, the home vote they called it, the regular election, and the army vote. both democrats and republicans had great hopes and great anxieties for the soldier vote. 17 northern states of the 22 in the union allow absentee ballots from their soldiers in the field in 1864. george mcclellan was a soldier's soldier and worked his networks to encourage other soldiers to support him. but mcclellan's status also hurt him. many soldiers thought it was inappropriate for a general still with rank and pay, although no longer in the field, to run against a commander in chief that he served. the democrats's peace plank alienated many soldiers who saw

their only capitulation. the democratic platform, moreover, expressed only sympathy for the soldiers as if they had been duped, soldiers knew that the democrats in one state after another had voted to deny them the right to vote in the absentee ballot. they were only temporary soldiers in any case. volunteers with loyalty still firmly attached to the localities and states. republicans were confident they would win a majority of the army vote. they did not know if it would be enough to overcome close home votes in pennsylvania and new york. this is one reason they further thousands of soldiers to go back home to make sure that the home vote was better. after the mother campaigning building on the years of constantly shifting sands of public opinion the votes came in. maybe i can show the map i have now.

i can. i love this. this is the election of 1864. i think it is amazing. lincoln would win by a 411,000 margin over mcclellan. the electoral college he would win when by 212 to 21. he we carry new jersey, kentucky and delaware. kentucky was in control of all but one governor office and the state legislature, given them the power to name united states senators and tighten grip on congress. you look at most histories of the civil war, they skate right over the complications of this endpoint to that huge victory is indication that the white north is fully in support of everything the republicans are doing. there are things for us to

remember. 80,000 well-placed votes would've thrown the election to mcclellan. just 80,000 votes out of over 4 million. despite all the advantages they enjoyed, close to half of american voters voted against abraham lincoln and the most important election and the nation's history. he received the same share of votes he received in 1860. 55. as we have seen over the last eight years, nearly half the population that did not win does not just fall into line. it does not just say, what were we thinking? yes, we agree with what you are doing. it matters a great deal for all the other things we will be talking about the rest of the day.

all these blue areas, coast-to-coast, upper north and lower north, border south, the state and small voted for the democrats when abraham lincoln needed them. this is not just leftovers. this is after all the cards are on the table and they know what is coming. nearly half of white northern men will not support abraham lincoln. one thing to notice as we think about election season coming up, the electoral college did what it is supposed to do. it turned marginal victories in one county after another, a lot of those red counties could of been blues, it comes down to some counties. 100, 200, 300 voters. and in the states themselves were close, but the electoral college greets a mandate whether or not they won before. you may have to people support him or him lincoln! he won 212 electoral votes.

it's the case of the two-party system helped channel all of this. let's imagine -- the constitution channeled all of this. it said it would be an election then and only then. a parliamentary system, the opposition system -- could have mobilized in july or august of 1864 and called for an election in which republicans might not have one. as it was, the election in november occurred at a time of these victories have come to pass. think about that. all these things in the two-party system which today seems like create so much trouble actually channeled this so they were only two choices and give a clear mandate to president lincoln. think about all the things that could have happened. what if the democrats met at a different time? what if they had not made his boneheaded moves?

what if the military victories of georgia and virginia came weeks after they did? what if they had not been able to enfranchise the soldiers in the field? all those things could've happened as late as the summer, and now the fall of 1864. if we are going to talk about a turning point in the war, it is not until now. it is not until nearly the end and it is this election field by the military turning points of atlanta and the shenandoah valley that brings about. it's only after this it is certain that slavery and the confederacy would be driven to an end. what is important to recall is how close the united states came to that. after this election think about how quickly the other pieces came into play. for them seven months after this election here is what you have.

the passage of the 13th amendment in january after this election in november. sherman's field orders 15 disturbing went to the free people. 40 acres and a mule in south carolina in january. lincoln's second inaugural address in march. the freedmen's bureau in march. lincoln's final speech and assassination in april. johnson's assumption of the presidency in april. african-american mobilization, which is been taking place in places it occupied, accelerated as well. this sequence of events, political, partisan, military, and on the ground in the south defined the issues and major protagonists reconstruction before appomattox. that is not to say appomattox did not matter.

it is to say that reconstruction did not flow directly from the emancipation proclamation, as you will see some generalizations arguing, or the gettysburg address as we haven't talked to believe. or sherman's march. it took the shape of the compliments of the political and military and social and economic in the summer and fall of 1864. the injury of reconstruction events around the election of 1864 allowed us to address some old questions in new ways. anyone who is ever spoken about the civil war in public is her the question, what would lincoln have done about reconstruction? behind that question lies others. where we doomed to have the painful reconstruction we endoured? where he destined to abandon the enslaved people at the moment of freedom? was it ordained that the confederates would fight back with every weapon at their disposal? with a white south of been more

unified and generous? could we have been a stronger and better nation if abraham lincoln had seen us through the critical years following the war? these are good questions, enduring questions. they are especially compelling questions as we enter the anniversary. years of reconstruction i think the questions about lincoln and the possible course of reconstruction bear particular burden partly as a result of the events i just described. lincoln, a master of light which and eloquence, said relatively little about what he planned to do with the war ended. he had good reasons for his reticence. he had to win the war before he could know what to follow. he only had about six months from the time he became clear that the united states would win, and until he was assassinated. he had only two days after lee's surrender to speak on the subject. second, the politics of the situation could not even more complicated.

nearly half of white northern voters risk death refused to support lincoln. those democrats despite lincoln and would not support whatever he supported. large numbers within his own party from the left and the right challenged any plan he put forward. third, the people that in confederates and sacrificed lives, slavery, pride, independence, would resist any effort to remake their society. and finally the nation had to find it would make people who have been held in perpetual bondage their entire lives for generations, the fruits of their labors deprived for them for all those years, haven't they determine their own political fate? and their civic fate? these problems stood before anyone who would lead the nation in 1865, even abraham lincoln. the challenges were not just making.

he did all anyone could have to minimize the obstacles of reunification and the integration of african-americans into the national politic. that goal had shaved all he had done throughout the war. those two goals were often -- people were puzzled. happy prosecute this war and still speech in such terms of bringing the former confederate states back in? he was trying to restore the union. how did he talk like that and still talk of ending slavery? it was lincoln's genius that he was able to hold both those ideas together. it also made it very hard to be abraham lincoln. lincoln worked to pass the 13th amendment even during wartime since a legal foundations for the end of slavery would be in place when the war ended. the emancipation proclamation

had been a war measure. he knew, and this is interesting about the lincoln movie, it focused on that struggle. and i think wisely. this is what was able to redeem so much of have been won in the war. the ram of a former democrat. a southern unionist in 1864. andrew johnson, with whom he had had one conversation, maybe the last conversation he had for his final speech or he went to the theater. johnson thought he was doing with the signals of the national union party pointed towards. slavery is over. let's put the country back together and build a national republican party. white southerners behave differently under lincoln? with lincoln have behaved differently than johnson? lincoln misjudged the southern white majority every step of the war. he could not believe that people

who love the united states did not still really love it even know they had been tricked into rebelling. he kept thinking give them a chance. he had a 10% plan. their true selves are come forward. lincoln appeared to believe that after the war. give them a chance and they will prove their true love for the founding would come forward. scholars study all this a great deal. they looked at the course of the war under lincoln to see what you might even thinking. we had to look hard because he just did not show all his cards. generally in lincoln's last speech given only two days after appomattox and devoted to the challenges of reconstruction in louisiana, lewis maser has an interesting new book called "lincoln's last speech." read the last speech and it is not classic lincoln.

he uses the phrase -- here is what he talks about. "proper practical relations" is mentioned six times. "better angels of our nature." lincoln is thinking about this in his last speech. his final sentence that he gave at a public speaker was "in the present situation it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the south. i'm considering and shall not fail to act to satisfy the action will be proper."

you cannot have a more open ended statement about what about what reconstruction might've been under abraham lincoln. that same speech would make an allusion to the possibility that some intelligent black veterans might be able to vote. that is when john wilkes booth determined that lincoln must die now before you have black suffrage. never mind is how volatile these things are. the proper, practical relations the same time he says the words that trigger the assassination that many had dreaded for so long. maser and another book study all of this and they say we cannot know. we know he was a better politician and more portly had the entire party behind him the way johnson never did. there is no indication whatsoever that lincoln had ever thought about the fundamental changes of land confiscation and distribution that would make it possible for the free people to build new lives. we lost that moment. the whole nation was trying to figure out when the largest and

most powerful slave society of the modern world collapses. with the largest single concentration of capital in the united states is gone. 4 million people with nothing but the shirts on their backs have to make the live for themselves. what can be more challenging than that and what to be more important than that? the challenges confronting anyone who understands all these years is that it was in fact reconstruction. it was the result of generation after generation of fighting over what would follow slavery. at the same time there is a sudden twist of events that steer what might seem an inevitable process at the end of american slavery in the reunification and the forms nobody could have foreseen. you have to understand both of those things. the big patterns and the particularities in which history actually happens.

the story of slavery is long and legitimate emphasizes the long tradition of existence without which this would not have happened, or the crash of events that ended slavery far more rapidly than anyone could have dared imagine. here is what the events between august 1864 and april 1865 remind us. the end of slavery did not really happen as a product of inevitability or circumstance or accident or cynical policy, but the result of consistent principled dangerous efforts on the parts of relatively few people. first mainly black and marginalized people, then steadily embracing more white and powerful people in the context of war. the challenge to our understanding counts are culmination of this struggle ultimately dependent on all the people in blue. on the millions of voters who were never persuaded that this should be the purpose of the war. when we realize that unwilling

or agnostic or noncommittal people in the united states army and even in the republican party created a space in which these things could happen. they did not have a unified north behind them and they did have a unified white south opposed to them. so i hope i have lived up to john's order to set the stage. if not telling you all the things that happened good help us realize what was at stake. why these of the most important years in american history. why the roots reach the back into the civil war and very concrete ways. why to understand the civil war you have to understand reconstruction. and do understand reconstruction he have to understand the american civil war. i believe we're supposed to take questions.

is that correct? >> remind people to use the microphones. mr. ayers: please use your microphones for c-span and they are coming to you. [applause] mr. ayers: is always good to get the applause for the questions. >> excellent talk is always. we always enjoy your observations. i have two questions. i'm trying to figure which one would ask. one of the things we often hear is that it was the victory at atlanta that solidified the momentum for reelection and that sheraton's victories of the icing on the cake that helps -- it was invented that was the turning point. you suggest that while atlanta was kind of a shock to the system for the northern war effort, it was the victories in the valley that solidified the support and the eventual

reelection. is that a fair assessment argue even drop as distinctions? mr. ayers: you called me out on that. [laughter] here is the thing. i think it's fair to say you have crystallized common belief about this. that it was atlanta. it doesn't happens i'm writing a book about the shenandoah valley. i'm sure they cannot of possibly all that said. i do believe we are probably underestimating the role that sheridan's victories, right on the cusp of election, right on the borders of what is the most important states, and right outside of washington dc i think the latching onto sherman's victory, which i'm not diminishing, when you get to

this part of the story we sort of see the end of the work coming and we start rushing along. both the election and its outcome and the war itself. we forget how many men are still left to die. how many battles are to be fought. and how large the civil war was and how many consequences it had. i don't know if it's revisionism. i'm just calling attention to the fact you think about the particularities of the election. if you are in that moment and reading the newspapers and you have the most popular pawn to come out of the american civil war, shermans ride comes at a week before the election and

it's all across the north, and the third most popular picture of the civil war, sheridan's ride to winchester suggests it had a consequence. there is a vote tonight in south carolina. we had just the last three days important things happen in the news that we can see before our eyes. i think if you think about proximity and time and perception and self-interest, the shenandoah valley is a lot more important than we have been led to believe. yes? the microphone is coming to you. >> your graphics always illuminate and in my case almost always confuse. [laughter] mr. ayers: just for a moment. >> the residents of counties in the newly admitted state of west virginia have the opportunity to cast votes in the 18 six before

election? i don't see any red or blue counties in west virginia. dr. ayers: who knows? anybody know? get off my back jack. i don't know. it is my believe they did and i also believe nevada should be on here as well. let's look at one way to look at this is to look at the maps i hate which are just electoral college. it suggests we live in red or blue states. that we are a certain kind of people. this is a more accurate -- you see it has west virginia. it might be we don't have county level data. are you less confused? you draw attention to the fact that there are states that are voting for the first time which is another advantage the republicans have. all the situations actually play to the advantage of the republicans. they had not only the army, but also new states formed. ok? another question? yes.

>> writing a book about the shenandoah valley and the activities there, will you address in that book or today the importance of david hunter's action at the battle of piedmont? 's subsequent move of the valley and the diverse police forces from around richmond? dr. ayers: i will. >> to sheridan's -- dr. ayers: i will do both right now. a fascinating thing in my forthcoming book. [laughter] dr. ayers: in all honesty, it has been fascinating to study the military events in the valley all the way from the dead of winter of 1864, and not only hundred before him siegel and after him sheridan, and watching breckenridge. i did a pilgrimage to the battle

of piedmont battlefield. my wife, bless her heart, agreed to go with me. we went over there and end up having to use latitude and longitude to find the one marker that's about the size of this lecture and with no place to pull off. i stood there and i told her, honey, you won't believe the thousands of men that fought here. it i seem plays an enormous role in the outcome of the war. i also write about the different ways of violence. the guerrillas were bedeviling hunter and siegel and sheridan. it only makes sense of use and how much they made it impossible in hunter's own mind for him to build on the victory there and go take lynchburg, which could very easily have brought the war to an end months earlier. if you cut off saw bill and the virginia center railroad and the tennessee railroad, lee will be in serious trouble. yes, i would have to say trying to put all the pieces together i never more convinced that the

centrality of the valley and the outcome of the entire war. i learned a lot from mark tinsley about how important it was not to just understand what is happening right around here, as important as that is, plenty when it's ineffective at army second swing back and forth between the valley and here. a free copy of your book when it comes out next year. is a time for one more question? there was the microphone. >> i know you don't want to talk of the subject too much. dr. ayers: that is all the time we have for today. [laughter] >> i had a question of reconstruction for you. i'm just kind of trying to figure this out. when they determine how many federal troops are going in each state, that they base it on the population of that state or is it generally assigned somebody troops the specific state in the

south? had in the process work? dr. ayers: you are right. any question that involves knowledge i usually like to avoid. let me tell you something else that i will put in place of knowledge. there is a new map out that shows, it was made by greg downs that you can find online, it shows the location of all the military presence across the south. which is much larger than we had realized. this is a constantly shifting calculation you are making. they have to invent a whole idea of military districts. i will end with this observation which does not answer your question. i just want to be honest with you. >> thank you. dr. ayers: people generally don't realize that reconstruction is in two phases.

they don't realize there are two years before what we think of as reconstruction by which we actually mean military reconstruction comes to pass. in between its basically experimentation to see how many troops is a going to take to protect the freedmen's bureau. are delighted to put into place and actually sustain the federal presence there long enough for the south to quit fighting back in riot and rebellions and lynchings and to come back in? the military presence is not really a left over for the war, but a reinsertion. at the same time they are fighting the american indians in the west. we will pretend if you triangulate all the different things i just told you that it answers your question somewhere in the middle. i thought we were done but there is one more.

>> on what to pull rank and ask a simple question. if i could recommend one book on reconstruction, what would it be? dr. ayers: well, there is only one answer is that really. eric foners classic from 1988. that was a long time ago. like dog years in historian years. the fact we've not been able to -- and we all went to constantly revised those that came before us. is that is held up remarkably well. it's very long. there is a short history of reconstruction if you want to read that. i guess i have been struck and reviewed several new books of late. i thought this book by lewis maser helped me see things i had not seen before. we are rediscovering every single aspect of things i talked about today, including the military presence in the lives

of african americans, from republicans are doing and what the democrats were thinking. it is a remarkable fertile period. i would start with the one account that recalibrated are thinking that the african-american struggle for true american citizenship at the center of the story. when all these other things come and go that a silly endearing story. when all the mechanations of the republicans and democrats pass, when all the outbreaks of the ku klux klan come and go, were able to live up to the founding spirit of this country, of a nation that is built on the freedom and rights of citizenship of everybody. that is what i think about that and what i hope to talk about the rest today. thank you so much everybody. [applause]

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