chickamauga is widely considered to be the union army's worst defeat in the civil war's western theater and ranks second only to gettysburg casualties. the battle turned on a salt of confederate troops which drove one third of the union army from the field. next, james ogden resembles the assault and assesses the actions of general long street. he argues there was a difference between the formation long street had planned and how confederate troops lined up out of the subsidy during the heat of the action. the talk was part of the symposium hosted by the emerging civil war blog. it is about an hour and 10 minutes. my letter to introduce jim. i first met jim years ago attending a civil war journalism

conference. jim was one of the organizers of that event. questions --asked answered questions from a young journalism professor there. most easily one of the patient question answers i've ever met in all my years. patientsaciousness and many years ago made a profound i was on me because getting started with writing research about civil rights history so ioa great deal of personal gratitude to jim. it is exciting to have him come up. during his tenure at the park service, he worked here at

fredericksburg. has been with the park service since 1982. in 1988, he landed at chickamauga. 400 given more than lectures, talked to countless young historians. he has spent many years tutoring of civilng generations war buffs. but very few of us working in the field not anyone who has made a greater impact on the study us of a war history as jim. it is my pleasure to introduce to you in man who is truly a ogden. jim

[applause] >> thank you, chris, and i think i'm going to have to start off by getting out of your site for a minute. >> the owner of the computer is here. that will save me having to learn another one. you for the introduction and thanks everybody involved with emerging toil war for having me up speak. i'm glad to be able to do it. thank you for coming out and participating in this symposium these issues with

the war. i hope that most of you have had athance to visit chickamauga one time or another. there certainly is a lot to see their and if you haven't visited thanks to thes assistance of several , somevation organizations additional areas of the battlefields there have been preserved. not all of background is yet -- that ground is yet open. some of it that has been preserved has only limited access to it. but if you have your hiking boots on and pick the right time of the year, there are some more parts of the battlefields in the

chattanooga area as you can get on now and consider the actions on the ground where they actually occurred. time atave spent much the chickamauga battlefield, you certainly know part of the story and the deciding moment in the battle. notice i did not use the term decisive. maybe later i will defined what i mean deciding versus decisive. be familiar with this first quote i will start with. theline janel emerged from forest into the open ground on the border of long, open fields over which they were retreating under the cover of several batteries, which were arranged along the crest of a bridge along the right and front running up to a corner of a stubblefield window one battery on our left and front hosted on

an elevation in the edge of the woods just at the corner of a field near the peach order and dyer's hose. of the scene presented was unspeakably grand. the impetuous charge, the rush of our heavy columns sweeping out of the shadow and into the fields flooded with sunlight, the glitter of arms, the onward -- of artillery and now to demand, the retreat of the foe, the showers of the host of our army, the dust, this moke, the a burstingrearms and shell made up a battle scene of unsurpassed grandeur. here, general who made a last him on theeived from field. go ahead and keep ahead of everything. how this order was obeyed will be best determined by those who investigate all the details of this battle. johnson, a air

general commanding the provisional division that led in the end what is long street grand charge at chickamauga. it is as i said the deciding moment in determining the outcome of the battle, creating chickamauga as a tactical victory for the confederates. but there is a lot more to that story and that is what i want to spend a few minutes on tonight. there are many james long street fans out there who want to have james long street almost looking into the future and seeing exactly what was going to happen in the next few hours or minutes if we were on the battlefield standing at the point of the breakthrough. i might even motion towards a large pine tree on the east side

of lafayette road and say james long street fans would like to have old pete peeking around the edge of that pie tree to see thomas woods division moving out of the battle line. withof us will be familiar that formation for long street attack. mapof the maps, a valuable and certainly when you come down to spend your several weeks walking and studying the battlefield, you should have a copy of that along with you. but on that map, there is of course this formation right there in the center, its formation on september 20.

those troops stacked in that column formation dave spoke of a minute ago. static becauses, of the necessity to print them. need formation depicted for long streets formation just minutes before he will send the troops forward. that was not at all what he had originally intended or even what he really well and that with on the morning of september 20. of course, the decision was made a release of timbre. as a result, we start rose grant approach, that importing gateway to the industrial heartland and the cry for reinforcements as a result of rose grant approach.

confederate authorities in richmond made the decision to not only reinforce bragg's army with large number of troops from mississippi and east tennessee, but eventually to send to quarters of the first of more than virginia under james long street to virginia. of course, we could have another symposium sometime in the future to talk about the important rail moves of the war. this one is commonly used to illustrate the use of that new transportation medium in the war . long streets command wound its the 170 mile route through the eastern carolinas, then into georgia, to atlanta, and ,orthward to join bragg's army arriving in drips and drabs

depending on september 15 as a result of the distance, the number of rail lines necessary theake that move and deteriorating condition of the confederate rail system. games long street and himself did not of his staff arrive in the area of bragg's army until about 2:00 p.m. on .he afternoon of september 19 a stop on that railroad just a little bit south although technically just east of georgia, a platform that had been developed by the railroad as a place for those visiting to get off springs of the western atlantic railroad and take-home carriages to those

mineral springs. those mineral springs were -- had served as confederate hospitals in 1862 and into the summer of 1863. that is where braxton bragg was the bombardment of chattanooga began to announce the approach. in the area of the platform the destruction of bridges on the western atlantic railroad as bragg's army had

retreated out of chattanooga on -- ninth, 10th, 11th, the calvary screening that with a drawl in the area had burned a number of railroad bridges on the western atlantic railroad. and as a result, the railroad did not operate beyond catoosa platform and there is good evidence that no train could reach the platform itself, the --g street himself and his none of his staff will indicate exactly how they got their horses off the train when the train carrying those horses arrived a little later on, but john bell hood said that to get his horse off of the train, they had to jump the horse off of the that it was in. in addition, the reason that

they warned unloading right into platform itself and also why long street and his staff had to wait almost two hours for the train carrying their horses was that to accommodate the number of troops that were being moved, the railroad was being operated in sections and this was actually a common form of railroad operation at that time given the limited power of the locomotives and only a certain number of cars they could pull particularly if the cars were had anand so they elaborate system of being able to operate one locomotive string of cars, another string of cars, and they could do this too, 3, 4 train sets.

on the ride up from atlanta, one of the trains in this section .urther back arrived ase trains one of long street staff officers will say, our rickety train pulled up with jerks and bangs and they will get their horses. long street and another staff for thewill set out battlefield. the sounds of battle roaring in the distance. braxton bragg is often criticized for not having anyone there to meet james long street.

and while bragg could have been a better commander, i will defend braxton bragg here. it was not bragg's responsibility to have somebody there at the railroad to meet james long street. since 3:00 a.m. on the morning ofseptember 17, another james long street staff officers has been at bragg's headquarters. why wasn't lotro himself or someone metro had arranged at the railroad to meet long street. but long street and his party will set out towards the sound of battle in the distance. will work their way using the sound of battle as a guide. at one point, they are almost

captured after dark. the exact route of long streets travel toward the battlefield is not known. wounded soldiers were coming into the road they were on from the right, which would suggest he's moving more southwestward having passed through taylor's ridge. after newly riding into union, aboutmaking a sharp right from thell gallop away fire of the union pickets.

they will as they approach a battlefield itself will .ncounter polk at the moment the long straight in his party encounters them, polk had departed and what polk was headed back to his own headquarters. lunch street and his party will not reach bragg's headquarters until nearly 11:00 at night. it may however have actually been later.

and after brad was awakened, and street will join bragg there will be a private conversation between bragg and long street. long street in his report will briefly relate that meeting. i was assigned the command of the left wing composed of goods consisting divisions of stewards and preston's division. the artillery consisted of battalions of majors williams, robertson together with some other batteries attached.

organization number 11 in the 14 day time that is going to end with september the 20. how would he like to work in an organization that reorganizes almost daily? when he had assigned on the 19th . lunch they will go on to say the commanding general gave me a map showing the roads and streams between lookout mountain and the chickamauga river and a general description of our position. the map that long street refers to is probably a portion of the

principal amount that was in braxton bragg's headquarters at the time. this is plate number 48 in the official records at less. and i know on this screen, it's not possible to see all of the details of the map. he says he was given a map showing the rosen streams between lookout mountain here on the left edge of the map and chickamauga river or creek, which is here. and more probably something just like this.

the papers at the southern historical collection at the university of north carolina chapel hill, there are a series orthese snippets off of this a similar confederate map and that is probably what long street was given. the confederates have a difficult time reproducing maps of any size. you can find in a number of surviving collections almost like the old aaa maps or strip good for that row you are traveling on, but if you turn left or right off of the route, you are probably not going to know where you are going. long street will get just a very map. snippet of this

street will then begin to receive his order. i was informed the troops have been engaged during the day in severe skirmishing while endeavoring to get in line for battle. almost sure too many of divisions of the army at tennessee that had been engaged in the fighting on september 19 would say it had been nearly skirmishing. it had been a pretty costly fight, but that statement probably says something about the awareness that braxton bragg has of the condition of his army and the state of the army and bragg's long-held belief of how the battle would be

unfolding and now only here on the night of the 19th does he really begin to change that idea. long street will go on and say informed me the battle was ordered for daylight the next morning. the action to be brought on upon our right and be taken up successively to the left, the general movement to be a wheel upon my extreme left as a pivot. what a long street is referring to and what bragg had ordered was brought have essentially wanted all 10 of the then available divisions within his army overnight on the night of the 19th to get online side-by-side one another from north to south, all 10 divisions, and at dawn, the northernmost division, the right

off inn was to jump quickly thereafter from north to solve as each division one to its right move forward, the next division was to step off and move forward. this was an effort to get ,oordination, cooperation something bragg had a difficult time achieving over the last couple days. and so long street learned that night that the battle was expected to begin on the right at daylight the next morning and be taken up successively by division southward and essentially if things went essentiallyt would

be a large left wheel with long streets left division as a pivot. bragg and long streets private conversation lasted for about an hour. there are a lot of things we don't know about that meeting, one of which is whether or not braxton bragg communicated to long street that earlier in the evening, bragg himself had talked with one of long streets subordinates and relayed to him at least a general outline of the plan for september the 20. becausel come into play there is some evidence that hood may have relayed some of this his down the chain within

command late on the 19th or early on the 20th even before long street had arrived. about the brief meeting with the bragg is whether or not officer all his street.ed long the onen longstreet got company of the first louisiana calvary that will be assigned to him as escort and carrier and the soldier of the first confederate infantry, tom brotherton, son of the brotherton family whose farm will be a principal landmark for ongstreet's actions september 20.

that tomsible brotherton was already playing that role for johnson and hood on september 19 and 18. a number of soldiers from the the first in confederate infantry had been detailed at couple days before bragg executed his plan. so it is possible to him brotherton was serving in this capacity with the johnson and and 19th and8th becomes associated with longstreet on the 20th. after this brief conference with bragg, brad will return to sleep t and his small staff will also lay down to get some rest. sorrell says we all took to the

leafy ground under the tall oaks and hickories for some sweep against the work for us. no mention here of sending any to the five or six divisions he is to command the next morning at don to make preparations for the beginning of the attack in his sector soon .fter daylight but after the long train ride, you can certainly see perhaps and his for longstreet staff to get some rest against the work before us. the next morning, long street will say at don on the 20th -- the 20th -- there were

some indications it might have been a little before dawn. the next morning, longstreet will ride to the front through the fog that is rising that morning to find his command . on the soon to be six divisions that will present, only five of , that are coming from virginia as reinforcements for army. bestther regained our brigades are reinforcements that are sent from mississippi or east tennessee. sector ofdes into the his the left wing of the army of tennessee, he will find a situation very different than

that nice orderly formation of he will say that the line was a range from right only three brigades were up or somewhat in the rear of johnson. kershaw and humphreys the grade were forward from the might before but were not yet up. the general had not arrived yet from richmond. when the fighting on september dark,ed in most area at there was some fighting that continued until just after dark. --t of the confederate union units have that had been engaged

they would pull back and bivouac or bivouac on the ground where the end is up. what the fighting in their sector and it, to -- typically there will be darkness. one of the divisions longstreet , which hadded marched onto the battlefield on the afternoon of the 19th, and engaged in the fighting in the vineyard farm backat after dark pulled to the east several hundred yards and bivouac. formation similar to what david described earlier as the column or regained formation -- brigade formation. the situation that longstreet

finds that morning at dawn will necessitate a fair amount of work. divisions, johnson and preston had both spent time during the night doing fortifications in their sectors, fearful that they were going to attack them. also, there was almost a jungle in some areas of the battlefield with lines of battle of different the gates and regiments at right angles. the 19ththe evening of -- good paidd paid a visit to the headquarters and what he from bragg

expected on september 20. there is a possibility that hood had sent out some orders to at least the two divisions that he had commanded on september the 19th. 20th and bush and johnson's individual divisions. some of those troops report moving right at daylight on the 20thng of september the and before any evidence that longstreet had done anything to make some movement within those four sections. jerome robertson the templates

-- tempest brigade and the georgia brigade and the alabama , will soon brigade be under william perry. bending and robinson spent the night in the area where they were engaged on the afternoon of was ater the 19th, there least the necessity of getting those two brigades back with the alabama brigade, so it is lawible that either hood or even before longstreet began to exert any influence. when longstreet arrived and found goods division under law in a position behind alexander teacher stewart's division

longstreet about daylight, rose stuart ando issue to in the process learn from stuart that there were no confederate troops to stewart's right for more than 800 yards, half a mile distance. andstreet learning this, wishing to close on the left of wantingt wing, and also to get his division in the front division toart's , thisto the right graphic, what longstreet found in the description of stuart, donovan, preston in the front

with hood. , what second line longstreet long history -- on the situation when he attempted ,o achieve is this formation where he wants to shift stewards division to the right, get hoods or laws division on the frontline with the intention grades --the two were brigades arrived that they will or laws division towards the center, longstreet would keep -- what have a formation of four divisions across the front, and preston's division in reserve with kershaw joining law. he also ordered that each of the

divisions must form with true -- brigades up and one down. i someone a few minutes ago talk a little bit about the concept incorporating in tactics, that idea of the troops in the second line giving the commander some flexibility to shift troops left or right, to conduct lines or relief as needed. he wanted to have this formation of two brigades up and one brigade back. that's what he begins to his newate to subordinates on the morning of the 20th. stewart's division will indeed shift to the right. they will move north what along

the crest along which they are located, but they will only move about 400 yards. yardsght, about 1200 north of where stuart started out, someone else began occupying that same low ground. that was troops of the army of the cumberland. shift is only able to about 400 yards to the north or , and by necessity will ban his brigade at a right angle to guard his union troops on the same low rise around a little further to the north. when stewart's division shifted didhe right, johnson essentially what he had been told the evening before and that

was, maintain his connection with the troops on his right. right,shift to the johnson shifted to the right as well. they never opened in the frontline for laws division. heineman's division was to bivouac overnight and form on end, withleft, in the the arrival of kershaw, what with, was wound up not the formation that he desired. having the divisions on line two brigades up in one brigade back. instead, a formation essentially of three divisions across the front, to others stacked behind

the center division with one division held in reserve. in fact, there is evidence that everer longstreet or hood realize that laws division had not often on the front line. by the time they will actually move forward with the assault it is possible that longstreet was not even aware of this formation. that nice, neat grand column that appeared on that earlier map and was recognized by longstreet action at chickamauga was not what he had intended arid it was essentially the circumstance encountered there in the woods on the foggy morning of september the 20th.

this stack of three divisions, eight brigades and five lines, what becomes longstreet's grand column as it is called, a little closer up here, i know the size of this graphic, not everybody can read all of the formations. but bush johnson's division is formed with two brigades on the frontline, and part of his third birthday with the rest of that third brigade in the second line , then close division under law is formed with two lines, one .rigade up and to brigade back another indication that longstreet had ever been aware of the ability to get him on the frontline. and then, most maps have to show

this and in some form for understanding he had the two brigades in laws division and kershaw's division will become the fifth line of the assault column. arriving.nly until 9 a.m. on the morning of the 20th, they had orders to move from their bivouac near the bridge near west chickamauga creek. they are marching into position longstreet when will send this formation forward. shifts in made these the formation that morning. effort to get laws

division on the front line and to reduce the space between his will and left, longstreet shift troops over in front on -- polk'slk's troops. you will wind up with the circumstance of these two wings armie overlapping one another. because of the communications hislems would badly play army, not until after 9:30, talks about briefly the formation of hills divisions , tacking on the morning of the 20th. when those troops finally began their attacks, center and left

sittle overlap longstreet' right. you will get an intermingling of the commands. gettinget will work on , butormation as he desires solves that, the fighting on the right will begin. he will say that as soon as he heard that fighting, he thata messenger to bragg he order his divisions to move forward since time have been lost that morning. returned,t messenger he learned that a frustrated had thrown his

hands up with the command situation. having struggled over the last nearly 10 days to get his orders carried out, and now yet another day not be getting the way that bragg desired, braxton bragg, launched is the salt, turned to one of his officers major howard lee and ordered lee to write down the line and order everything the -- division commander into action immediately. lee directive by bragg to which lee will begin to carry out, shows braxton bragg just giving up on his command structure. lee will begin writing out, and he will reach alexander peter

extorts division. store, being a regular part of bragg's army, here is this directive from want of rags trusted staff officers -- one of bragg's trusted staff officers, he jumps off into this direction from braxton bragg. orderlyet's nice and across the front, will be disrupted when stewart's division attacks on the directive from lee.\ . sport --hat lee will disrupt his formation, longstreet will issue an order for a forward movement.

this directive will put hoods divisiond heineman's in motion. the deciding attack of the battle. 11:00, the first line of johnson's division and the first line of feynman's division -- china's division was sent off. they are skirmishers, which had been pushed back by a very aggressive union skirmish line. so aggressive that some confederate commanders said that just before the order to advance, to repulse this union attack, some -- several of the artillery battles along that

front confederate lined head open fired. now the order to advance is , part ofd mcnair's gates will aller step off. after they hit the grass about 200 yards, the second line moves forward. they mention the relative spacing in a column formation. you had to have the proper distance between the lines to facilitate the movement to the left or right of the troops. that formation that long street had while raining the assault was formed with only 50 or 75 yards between the lines. it now has two uncoil as it moves forward in the assault so that there would be enough room , and the troops

second, third, fourth line to maneuver as needed. after that second line began to move, the third line did not yards,til another 200 then the fourth line in the fifth line. some ways it was like a spring, slowly uncompressing as the line moved slower. of course -- as the line moved forward. this was successful, at least in helping to decide the battle of when johnson's troops go forward what do they find. they happen to strike the second error -- center of the unit line, there was a gap

that rosencrantz believed existed in his line. as johnson's men came out of the woods on the east side of the road and entered the field on the farm, they found no federal force. some of the federal skirmishers were still there, some of them from illinois under their amongd will take shelter the buildings of the farm in an effort to resist the confederate advance. from there, many of them will be captured, much to the delight of ofe of the tennesseans johnson's division. the last couple of weeks before the battle of chickamauga there is a new man elected to the grade of second lieutenant.

they had not yet had an opportunity to acquire the proper symbols of authority for a second you -- second lieutenant. men of theture hundred illinois around the buildings of the brothers farmstead, there are a number of officers from the 100 illinois. what are those captains and lieutenants wearing question mark the proper symbols of authority. man moments later fulton's continued westward, recently minted second lieutenants from tennessee are wearing the proper symbols of authority in the form some booty from the battlefield. the dashing forward, we have this first slide, several artillery batteries, blowing a .ole in the union line

but there was no need for them because johnson's troops will -- pour through the line. in more than an hours time, the aeros on this map show -- the arrows on the map show the southern half of the union line on the battlefield will crumble ,nder the weight of the assault as these union troops leave this assault, they will turn northward towards chattanooga, some of them rallying to make a stand on a series of wooded hills part of the easternmost portion of the missionary ridge complex, sod grass hill and horse shoe ridge. forwardet had ridden

between the fourth and fifth line, as it turned out the column. as a charge into the fields, the commander -- it turned out that three divisions john l lloyd --hood, will be wounded. he lost his right leg at chickamauga. thanks to the work of stephen hood, relocating and another a lot morehe family, of the details of his wounding are known. the path of the will through his and necessitate the

amputation of the leg on just a couple of inches of the hip. , the commandding of his formation willie sensually come to him end -- will, to an end. date of rank check on the battlefield with the bullets flying. doesn't really matter, as the command structure will disintegrate. keeptreet was trying to track of the nature of the formation. he had followed the column forward and to the right, as he rode along trying to judge the

action, he realized it was now near noon. it is also what time of day. it is time for lunch. he ordered his lunch brought forward, while he scouted just a little bit, and then shortly 1:00,fter, probably after longstreet and his staff and simon and his staff sat down to a lunch. probably not at the farm as was marked by the -- more probably on the brotherton farm. they sit down and enjoy bacon and sweet potatoes. during which one of the staff officers manning will be wounded when he was struck by a small fragment of shell. right the natural

reaction of the human. sped. read noted that he cannot and they proceed to get a knife to pry the chunk of potato out of his windpipe. manning is carried on to the rear to be killed for, long street will also have an order issued and distribute some of .he captured artillery pieces it is an illustration at this moment he is not exercising direct control of the situation on the battlefield, with hood wounded and carried to the rear. with braxton bragg,

where brad wanted longstreet to send his troops to his sector will largely take longstreet out of control of the situation through the afternoon. that's how you wind up with the asory of piecemeal assaults, many as 25 individual brigades do the assault. longstreet attack on september 20 will result in the collapse of the union line, largely situation, the condition of the union line as they found it at that particular moment, it will survive the tactical battle of chickamauga, but it was not quite the grant isault that james longstreet credited for.

it comes more of the circumstances that he their in the valley of west chickamauga creek on the morning of step to improve 20th 1863. -- on the morning of september 20, 1863. it seems like from what you did he, longstreet, use these tactics? >> column formations are included in scott tactics. tactics is in scott all battalions and all units on line.

scarvesormations are in -- scott's tactics. if you look at formations on other battles deal and other assault does have some depth to his formation. two brigades up, to brigades that or multiple lines of troops. that is what he is doing here. as i said, there is some evidence that he was not aware of the fact that the depth of his formation wound up with those five lines at chickamauga. he was intending of having to brigades up and to back. divisions were to be formed to brigades up and one back. if there were more than three brigades in a division, they with half themed

brigade in the frontline and half second line. at threeivisions brigades except one division, which had to brigades. that knowingsay that all of them were three brigade formations -- he did want the depth so you have the versatility and lacks ability to react to the situation. if you look at some of his other assaults on battlefield, if you look at another assault that he was supposed to be responsible for, there was a lot more depth to the by that commander four masked and then what was achieved.

i heard that longstreet >> or heg out of virginia, didn't have all of his troops or horses on the battlefield. ?f they had been there earlier >> that is difficult to judge. the potential difficulty of shifting any sizable body of .roops any distance several times during the war, the resistant on the idea of sending troops from his army to anywhere else, saying that by the time they get there the situation will be changed and

there will be more and greater value, to try to change the course of the war. made adecision had been few days earlier, how might that have influenced him? that is difficult to say. the arrival of reinforcements is what will embolden braxton bragg to take the offensive anyway. postpones his defense at chickamauga by one day when latrobe arrives and gave bragg a what thet of an idea troops were under. it is difficult to judge the made an, if it had been day or week early what the union army was doing. seems like most of these

-- hard toattacks understand why there was an -- and thiscommand is war. have theon't yet established practice of a chain of command. again, longstreet command 17 brigades. only five of them are his own brigades. 12 were regular parts of racks tennessee or reinforcements from mississippi andes tennis the -- and east tennessee. they tried to pull together and mapnized here it that first

, all the way back at the beginning of the powerpoint, suggest to us a nice, neat, orderly formation. but it was anything but that. herschel's and humphreys ruggeri are over the line -- are over the line. deployed, there was fire coming through the woods towards them. very last-minute as the as with hood corps commander. there are some of those normal just aren't present.

says the 20th longstreet the whole thing doesn't move until 9:00. >> the attack does not begin until 9:30 and it starts on the right. longstreet will not send his troops forward until about 11:00 . it did not start on time. it did not start on time because message delivery problems overnight and in the from braggng hours, and others, we could do a whole symposium on just one win --

officers wrong, staff who cannot find the people that they are sent out to deliver the message to. guides who were supposed to meet maintaining where you turn off the road to go to pull headquarters, messengers who return who delivered a message and don't tell anyone. i have only begun to enter into the situations that did not happen. the man who was supposed to open the attack at a dawn, whose division is supposed to be the first attack, slept. did not tell him he was he was expected to do the next day at day dawn.

there are communications problems. earlier they made remarks about coordination issues. when you have command dissension the first thing that goes is communication. which then means you are not going to achieve coordination, synchronous -- synchronization. i appreciate you having me in your symposium. [applause] barring any complications, i will be around for the rest of the weekend. if you have additional questions i will be happy to talk to you. >> thank you very much. you're watching american history tv and 48 hours of programming on american history everywhere he can -- weekend. , and tos on twitter

keep up with the latest history news. both george bush and obama to some extent were prisoners of the situations they created. but they both were willing participants in this existing budget game. >> author and washington post -- talks about business and economic issues and the performance under president obama. >> it's not so high because he policies that were aimed at protecting his legacy. it undermined general confidence in the economy. night at eight eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a. tvnext on american history

artists peter without shoes of paintings of 19 century d.c.. the capital building, the white house and george washington's home at burnet. the u.s. capitol historical society hosted this event. it's 45 minutes. >> welcome to another scorcher in washington dc. i'm the chief historian here at the u.s. capitol historical society. our third in our august lunchtime lecture series. we have the pleasure of having an artist with the pretense of being a historian. peter wadell, he's from new zealand, but has been artist in residence in georgetown, maybe some of you are familiar to i recommend you go over there.