and division results in poor white or former slaves or runaway slaves coming together as a band of brothers. i'm curious about your thoughts about this. the same time, you also have to ask the question, which >> deserters, how are they are going to operate for so long. 80% of the military age population is in the army. case, what does that say about the majority of people in jones county #--? that level of investment is mind-boggling. >> for which you lose is that mobilization. it is subscription and coercion.

a tremendous amount of force and violence. to is youhis points see these various experiences in different stories that have to be recovered in some way. i thought she said it beautifully about why these and deserve our attention. within that, you can understand and appreciate why men and women during the war and in the immediate aftermath why it was thissy for them to make sacred. dismiss that out of hand as a historian is problematic. i think it is also problematic

even today. sometimes do that with a lost cause. we have engaged in a range of visitors who have had these views. that this quickly on understanding was important. to see that a frontal attack was not going to work with them. is that going to work you had ancestors of the confederate side area. i am not. you just might get conversation. >> i think his book on the confederate battle is excellent

on dealing with this issue. >> it is a very good book. we have answered this question with the first doctor and we will set. doctrine we looked at. it was gradually worn down by the accommodation and -- combination of numbers. he is combining it with the overwhelming number of soldiers in the union army. there is little acknowledgment in most of the lost cause writing that union victory came about because of pure generalship of northern officers. >> can you all healthy here with gettysburg.

they tried to explain away this. explain how its place is in this theory. he is going to give 84 on this. ist i would say about that that he was one of the leading .ectors i have a quote from him here today. i'm convinced that if these plans were carried out, a decisive victory would have been obtained. this is a postwar construction 1870's focus is in the

after they had publicly made statements. when it is to cross -- projects was to protect his image. helped toed him and shift the focus to long straight. he was his own worst enemy. that was just another reason to attack him. -- they0's come under fire as well. tell us about how this lost cause. what is the message?

it is not a lost cause construction. that is a point that i would bring up. many other x confederate generals made it there project to venerate leave. at first it was personal. he had to remove him from letter saying they have lost faith in you but i haven't. he exchanged numerous letters

and it was so important to him. here tot the emphasis see the world why we lost. this became a pet project. this melted. to clarify, he was writing early in the years immediately after to try and tame -- obtain copies of the reports. gettings interested in this. that is an important point about lee. he had been working behind the scenes. if you have gone public in his like he intended to

do. public in that -- debate, no one looks bad. he was also the president of a struggling college. it kept him from writing the book. he did not want to engage in that kind of thing. here is where the lost cause comes in. he is just above the fray. he was able to smooth all of those edges over.

he was the idol of his people. became a war he christian gentleman and a great gentleman. it is something to teach to your students. did he not experience it that way. that would be missing the point here. they elevated a point. that is why gettysburg is so crucial here. you have to find state goods. andas a military record

that is gettysburg. sense as toot of why they have to destroy the reputation. they had to show the world. this also means that the war does not exist beyond the appalachian mountains. it exists only in virginia. you can focus on lee as the great general. wait a minute, we have gettysburg and then we have the great turning point in the war.

it has been redeemed. there is more balance but what is extraordinary troubling to me is that there is still a lost cause in this whole subject. people will talk about long straight -- street. disengaged and let them roll their regions, things would have been different. when i hear that hallucination i want to interrupt folks and say do you know what you are saying? we do this far too often. these ideas.ze what you are saying is you win -- wanted a confederate nation.

[applause] >> we started covering an early -- it earlier. what is the legacy of a lost cause? this is a tough question. on terms of physical reminders where i am from, every courthouse square has a confederate monument. most of these were erected with a near timeframe. erected for multiple reasons. commemorateected to

the staggering loss of life that had taken place in those four years. they are also reminders for ofryone in those communities andholds the reins of power they were erected during a time when terrible things were taken place. 1890's whend in the you have this disenfranchisement. you had jim crow laws being passed and lynching. monuments today are problematic as we know. these monuments are becoming contested. what do you think?

>> this monument has jackson, lee, stewart and arthur ashe. [laughter] on monument avenue. how you handle it? >> i have a diverse population of units. -- students. sayle come up to me and a picture ofs have jesus that steve of picture of robert fleet. -- on their fridge next to a picture of robert e. lee.

i honor that and i don't say that i have the right answers. we just have to have conversations about communities. interpretation started in the south and has spread through the whole country. centennial'sre the we see and this is on emancipation that has been obscured for so long. i think it is healthy that we have conversation. what i tell my students that is the historians to provide contacts? -- context.

these are all ideas that are encompassed in the statues. when they stay out there by themselves, they may not know the story. finding way to provide context is extremely useful. she is working on an interpretive marker here in gettysburg. other communities are doing this also in georgia. it provides a context because for those of us who want to makes the monuments, that no sense to me. it seems to me that if you want people to appreciate and understand what union armies , we have to contend

with what they were up against. we also have to point out that more monuments are much and save more about the jim crow laws then the civil war. people just want to wipe this thing clean. that would do a great deal and make history relevant. there is a way of doing it. above all else, we can agree that i want to preserve my right to be offended. i mean it. i want my right to be offended to be preserved. [applause] i am offended by many of these monuments but taking them off that landscape would be a grave

mistake. joe has done some wonderful work and we need her to get a tour of the battlefield. then we will turn to questions. we should all be proud of where we have come in a short. of time. i think all of these voices are being discussed. we are engaging history. is trulyave done here remarkable. all right, we have some questions from the audience better going to be read to us. did southern religious

traditions have an effect on the south ability to accept contradictory elements of a lost cause? that is a fantastic question. the religious and cultural context certainly shaped the manner in which the lost cause is framed by various people. regions thatjor the lost cause was developed is that people have to come to terms with the fact that they had lost and they thought they were morally correct. cope with that.

they can say they are morally correct. >> going into the war, they thought god was on their side. in the end it was a great shock. did they lose their faith in god? did they lose their christianity ? they didn't. which wasous panel good but this needed to be discussed. even though the trauma of war was one of religion them. we are lost but not defeated. god will vindicate us. they thought hopefully would happen in their lifetime. was if it became

a religion. a great book on it was ghosts of the confederacy. >> they talk about the difference in protestants and christianity regarding the lost cause. >> that the lost cause rational decision national traction in england and france? that is so anecdotal that i cannot even repeat it. it is some international incident that i've said this. they have to worry about the eu now.

there's a lot of pro-confederate sentiment especially in england during it. resonates with the and southerners today. there is something romantic about the confederacy. i was a confederate reenactor when i was a boy. my mom claims i was a confederate reenactor because it's cheaper. [laughter] wrong slavery was a moral but there was something. there was a romantic appeal to the confederacy that explains why our friend in england was saturated with the confederacy.

how does it form it critical examination? >> wow. take it away. he said he would take the hard ones. [applause] >> that is not what i said. i said i would take the hard ones that i asked. tape --whend the the tape. >> we need a lifeline. >> how does an examination of criminalcause inform examination of our national miss -- myths. by the early 20th century, it

became a national myth. he becomes an icon along side abraham lincoln. you can look at john brown gordon memoirs. he has very positive things to say. this is a really good question. it is always changing. that is not something that confederates had ever said. that is not something you would've heard. that is a very recent mantra that makes people go on the defensive. the daughters of the confederacy in the early 20th were holding contest

about writing contest about the old south. hatrede spewing racial and they are supporting behind u.s. military is. -- militarism. togetherable to come and the evolution of the lost cause. i tried looking at it this afternoon. i know that is here very briefly. they said we are not political. of course they were political. it is deeply political. it's malleable.

if woodward's burden of onthern history places it these men of citizens society. why is this like celebrated and set of associated with guilt? attention.call our when he argues convincingly is that the flag took on different meanings at different times to different people. it was a malleable symbol. people can hold a confederate you are said -- say remembering your lineage. in other person can hold it is about federalism and i don't think federal government should have a light hand.

begin as seen the flag a symbol of the nation. you have men that die under that flag. flag is drenched in blood. it helps to -- complicate why the fetters see . lots ofs see explanations. onbecomes a sacred object the battlefield. >> we have time for one more. this is a combination of two different questions concerning rape in the civil war. how did it respond to the rape of former slaves i confederate

troops? how did handle the rape of southern women by union soldiers? silent onitings are that topic. memoirs. casese looked at a lot of of union soldiers who were convicted of rape and in one instance in 1864, the marshall of the army was so concerned about the propaganda being used against the north that african-american soldiers have been let loose and were raping white women that he wanted to make a point after a in african man who made violence against a

white woman. .e went to such great lengths the confederates to not know what they were doing. white union soldiers were killed. they explained to the confederates that this was a black soldier convicted of rape. he choreographed this to the very end ringing into cool photographers. in twoging photographers. it is taken of johnson on the scaffold. was on harper's weekly. it was a huge picture and it was in the public discourse. they were not hiding it and it completely backfired for

patrick. intenselyt this very and there is only one small article about this in the confederate papers. >> some slaves who ran away came to patrick and said when they were on the scaffolding the confederates pointed across the line and said to the slaves this is what the yankees due to slaves. this is what they do to african-americans. patrick's attempt to send a the publicinfiltrate discourse of the confederacy didn't work at all. there was some discussion of it. >> birth of a nation. one of the two most important films to propagate the lost cause. enormous the important film. there are themes of attempted rape there.

thebirth of a nation it is virginityngering the of the white woman. that is the best example. >> and the yankee on the stairs. scarlet shoots her. [applause]

[indiscernible conversation]

[inaudible] >> he has written extensively about the american civil war. in 2013 -- [inaudible]

he is going to be with us next .ear in 2017 [applause] [inaudible] when you get an opportunity take a look at the program.

there is something for everyone. there is something reconstruction. brian will be speaking. . hope you all will come back [applause] >> thank you very much. [laughter] thank you peter. thank you everyone for all you do to make this possible. for everyone here i brought you

something. this is on loan to the pittsburgh penguins this year who have finally caught up to the new york islanders by winning four stanley cups. the penguins could have won a 1993tanley cup except in -- happy birthday david who somed the overtime goal -- of you may not actually recognize the stanley cup. the philadelphia flyers fans, for example. you would have to go back to 1974 and 75. new york ranger fans, once in a lifetime. canada-based teams, none of you made the playoffs in 2016. you have no chance. finally if you are a washington capitals team, you have never

seen it. [laughter] the truth hurts. many people see 1865 as the high point in the life of ulysses s. grant. after a year of long, hard fighting against the army north of virginia, april 9 of that year he accepted the surrender which is a. lee, decisive step bringing the american civil war to a victorious conclusion for the union. what did that victory mean? fruits of union victory? ulysses s grant would struggle to defend and define that

.ictory for the next 20 years first as general and chief of the armies of the united states, then as the 18th president of the united states. finally, and his postpresidential career as a speaker and author. ,fter he left the white house until his death in 1885. during that time, grant worked hard to balance the need for sectional reconciliation between white northerners and white southerners with the need to secure and preserve racial justice and equality for african-americans. he also sought to secure the political success of the party that saved the union, the republican party.

explain and then defend his own role in achieving military victory and preserving its fruits. becauseunderstandable his place in history depended victory worthe winning. grants personal identity will be wrapped together intertwined with what happened to the 20 years after appomattox. we have to bring those years together. this time he is general in chief. there are ways to bring them together to talk about efforts to preserve the fruits of the victory.

this notion of grant and a civil war is not original with me. i have built on it a great deal. i wrote a short essay called president grant and the continuing civil war which people overlook because it was in a limited circulation. the fact is that current rather than distinguished historians understood what the american civil war had been fought to secure had not been secured entirely at appomattox. there was a lot of discussion about when did the civil war in? -- end? to ass s grant solve it

joined together. reconstruction determined what the american civil war achieved for americans white and black of that generation. it's set in motion what we still struggle with, always viewed through the filter of how we understand reconstruction. andcan't take the two apart deal and semantic discussions about when the war ended. you remember april 9. the famous day in american history, right? appomattox day.

2003, the followed baghdad. dayou heard announcers that as we watched the statue be pulled down in baghdad, we are told this is what would make april 9 an important day in american history which shows the attention span of most news acres in the united's -- news anchors in the united states. just after that, not too long landedrds, the president on an aircraft carrier with a big banner, mission accomplished . i don't think we view that mission as having been accomplished anymore. we don't view that war as having ended with a surrender of conventional forces on april 9.

aprilserve that imagine 11. when abraham lincoln spoke to , 1865, several days heore his untimely passing, does not celebrate the mission was accomplished. he knew the mission had barely begun. that the conventional war may be drawing to a close but the struggle will continue and take forms people had not anticipated. lincoln would not be around to observe what would happen.

he would be around to try to secure the peace that union soldiers had done so much to win . he would do so under a new president, andrew johnson who took the office known as income tax day. many felt a lot of pain on april 15, 1865. grant's role is really important. he is the most popular man in the united states. as general and chief of the united states he is a command of the biggest piece of him from -- he will play a major role in peace.

grant worked hard to promote reconciliation. you can see that fact with the terms of appomattox, the generosity he showed robert e. lee making sure his men could , offices the forces could retain their sidearms. lee himself was touched by grant generosity and talked about how it would leave a good impression on his soldiers. we may have forgotten that was 24 hours when he may not have written but he approved of the .eneral orders he worked to promote reconciliation throughout the remainder of 1865.

one of the ways in which he did about became ambivalent soldiers on occupation duty in the postwar south. people who could vote in most cases after all, they went back to the big parade to be discharged leaving united states colored troops, united states , major means through which the united states army could exercise authority in the postwar south. you can imagine that was a challenge for all concerned. southern live said been petrified by the idea of african-american with a rifle.

today why people would be upset to see black people exercise their second amendment rights. you could understand african-americans recently freed enjoying their freedom, testing that freedom, when they met resistance would seek protection from their allies in blue uniform. whites resented the idea of black people telling them what to do, much as they had told black people what to do for centuries. try tomself mediate this process without basically not standing firmly behind black soldiers but saying work this out

because i understand southern sensibilities, married to the daughter of a slaveholder. he takes note of violence in the south but he is not terribly concerned until the end of the year when he takes a tour of the south atlantic states. there is a little more resistance to the idea of reunion and racial equality than he thought. it wasn't quite seeing that either. it was a chaotic situation. we still need to have some military presence in the south because things haven't been restored. order isn't fair.

a lot still to go. in 1866, his priority started to change. he was much more upset with resurgent confederate nationalism. now there was no confederacy. it was very popular. began to believe that white southerners were not accepting of people like to call the results of the war. at one point the generous victor of 1865 told a newsman that perhaps the union army should have been tougher with the white southerners. maybe they needed to visit more

neighborhoods. i'm waiting for someone to say sherman burned down my house, where was it, alaska. sherman was everywhere. i gather if you were a parent you would want to scare your kids, go to bed or sherman will combine you. -- come burn you. change.gins to he begins to understand one of the fruits of victory was the distraction of slavery. it did not mean the absence of of the but the beginning establishment of the foundations of freedom. he wasn't sure what that meant yet but he didn't understand what he was seeing was not what he had hoped for.

grant recalled one out of seven soldiers happened to be african-american. we forget that. as close to one out of 7 million was a black confederate soldier. one out of seven united states 1865 wasin 1864, african-american. he is defending his men as well as african-americans. this meant that began to change his attitude of who he was going to defend and protect. he started with support of johnson. by 1866 he began to have questions about johnson's motives, questioning his racism. septemberto a head in

1866 when he embarked upon his swing around the circle, trying to support candidates to defeat republican congressional candidates in that election. johnson took grant along with him on the trip which became a comic disaster. grant was not a public spokesperson. johnson would give these speeches that would be copied. -- knew what he would say next. those of you shocked by the language of candidates, andrew johnson compared himself to jesus christ. haven't heard that certain people -- yet. grant would come out and full design is and the crowds the start cheering and billing

for johnson. the train was making its ,ay from buffalo to cleveland what would you do? grant got drunk. later he said the president was a disgrace and he didn't want to be with a man who was making speeches on the way to his own funeral. grant supported the 14th amendment. when southern states failed to , hefy the amendment consulted with congressional republicans in framing the reconstruction act of 1867 which put the military in charge of restoring civil government throughout the south with the 10 states that had not ratified the amendment.

tennessee had ratified it and was excluded. granta gave instructions to his generals, loyal generals who ,anted to follow his policies and daniel sickles followed orders. it could happen. from july 2.earn who knows. winfield scott hancock came to command with democratic sympathies. he was the person in charge of trying to tell people this is what i advise you to do and i will protect you from the president and other critics as you try to do your duty as outlined in congressional

legislation. the rift between johnson and grant through -- grew. he began considering a decision to run for president of the united states. grant had no hunger for the presidency. he was getting all kinds of great stuff as general. people from boston gave him books. philly, they help finance a house. they gave it to him in new jersey. but then again as we know from a certain musical every is legal in new jersey. just ask the governor. yorkers being the

intelligent people they are simply gave him money. the ethics laws were somewhat different then. he is a young man. being general in chief was the longest term job he had ever had. in 1860 was awho clerk and his father's general store. he felt a duty to run for president. he's the youngest man to assume the offense of presidency at that time. or the six years old read he tells his friend sherman who that toated politicians leave the presidency to mayor trading politicians as he put it would lose the results of the costly war which we have gone through. to saven for president

the fruits of victory from continued political turmoil in disagreement which had reached its climax with the impeachment and your conviction of andrew johnson. grant didn't need a speech writer. he issued a four ward statement -- word statement. let us have peace. a malleable statement. between whites and blacks, between north and south, let us have peace and go make some money. great stuff. let us have peace. engraved at the entrance to his tomb. votesthrough enough including hundreds of thousands of african-americans casting their first ballot in a presidential election. to secure the presidency in

november, 1868. those people who voted for him voted to bring reconstruction to an end. they have had enough. --r years out mathematics appomattox. if only it had been that simple. as president he moved quickly to support the ratification of the 15th amendment and when it was ratified in march from 1870, grant commemorated the occasion with a special residential proclamation in which he said the 15th amendment included the road of repudiating the dred scott decision. presidents cannot issue proclamations. this was a special occasion.

now you could not use race, color to deny an american citizen the right to vote. he gained that position to the union. although he was more skeptical of trying to do the same in texas or mississippi. mississippi ran grant's brother-in-law. in the case of georgia where violence had been rampant because one of my secret gordon, redon b that plaque.

themn't want to talk about . despite his best efforts white supremacist terrorist violence increased. 1871, though grant urged congress to pass the most forceful in a series of enforcement acts to allow the federal government to protect the right to vote, the ku klux klan act. he could suspend the right of habeas corpus and said federal rightsto protect black from terrorist groups. that is homeland security for you. he does use that power to send troops into