for her documentary on the relationship between the police and the media. thank you to all the students who participated in our 2017 studentcam video documentary competition. to watch any of the videos, go to studentcam.org and studentcam 2018 starts in september with the theme, the constitution and you. we're asking students to choose any provision of the u.s. constitution and create a video illustrating why the provision is important. next, from the civil war institute at gettysburg college, john marslick, auth are on of commander of all lincoln's armies, a life of general halleck. he was involved in every significant political and military decision made during the civil war. this is about an hour.

emeritus at mississippi state university where he taught courses on the civil war, jacksonian america and race relations. he earned his ph.d at notre dame and earned his faculty in mississippi state in 1973 and during his time at mississippi state, he also served the director and mentor of distinguished scholars and as the executive director and managing editor of the ulysses s. grant association and the papers of ulysses s. grant project, with grant's papers being housed at mississippi state university. he's the author and editor of more than a dozen books and 250 articles -- that is impressive. including his important work "sherman. a soldier's passion for order," a finalist for the lincoln prize. dr. marslech received the

richard wright literary award for lifetime achievement by a mississippi author and the mississippi historical society presented him its highest award the blc wales award for national distinction in history. he's currently at work on a book on the development of the mythology surrounding robert e. lee and william sherman. today dr. marslech will be sharing with us some of the more recent work on henry howlick. dr. marslech? [ applause ] >> i thought i was dead. she took my notes. what was i going to do? well, thank you all for being here so early on a saturday morning. this is great. i want to talk to you about -- imagine scheduling a talk on henry howlech at this early in the morning, but we'll give

it -- it was quite a while, and i had -- i had a meeting of one of these history conventions and, you know, exchange usual pleasantries with people and you finally get down to the usual question, what are you working on now? well, and then you wait for a response. i ran into a colleague, and of course, what are you working on? what are you working on? i told them i had just started working on a biography of henry w. howlic, and it happened to be bud robinson who you know and bud laughed and said, john, you'll never finish it. you'll die of boredom first. well, as i worked on that project for a number of years, i must say that the fear of death was not high on my priority list, although i have to admit i did check my pulse pretty

regularly, but i really had more concrete concerns, and the concerns really were, i finished this book on sherman and sherman wrote to everybody all of the time, during battle after battle et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, so there has been a huge amount of writing. he'd written memoirs and i had a ton of stuff to use in that biography. well, the issue with howlic is completely different. he didn't write memoirs. he never wrote any post-war articles talking about what he had done during the war. i was unaware at that time of anybody of correspondence except for what was in the o.r. i knew that he had written or edited a series of books, but this was before the war, and they were technical publications, and there were

things like dealing with -- and you can imagine howlic doing this, intricacies of property rights and international law, military theory. so how is that going to get into the mind of this man of great pre-war accomplishment -- ney question about this. he had served longer than anyone else, as you know, during the civil war on either side and nobody had been commanding general that long as henry w. howlic. he was an important person and he was considered the leading military thinker of that period. he was an important military figure in the civil war yet early in the war, he orchestrated the union's successes in the missouri, kentucky, tennessee area and he organized and oversaw the winning and the opening union

triumphs in the western theater river system. he even had something to do with the battle of p. ridge of all places. he helped save sherman from the grip of depression. why? because he handled them properly and handled them delicately, but then again, he's the same man who almost lost u.s. grant to the union side because of his oficious bure ok ras. when he took the center of cor inth mississippi in may 1862 that achievement, unlike what we think today, that achievement was considered so important he did such a great thing that his soldiers gave him the nickname old brains because he captureded that site and he hardly lost any soldiers in the process any it was then that abraham lincoln

called him to washington to become the commanding general. in that role henry w. halleck was involved in one way or another with every major decision made in the american civil war. every major battlefield decision. he advised, he cajoled, he encouraged and in some cases he picked up the pieces. when grant assumed overall command in march of 1864, halleck stayed on. he became part of the important military theme. he was then called the chief of staff and it's not what we call him today. he was a chief of staff and he was a general to grant. he took the administrative burdens off grant's shoulder, and it was halleck more than anybody else who forged that

mighty military machine that finally overwhelmed the confederate forces. in short, i think it's fair to say that halleck played a major role both militarily and politically in the outcome of the civil war. he was a leading general, had an important influence on the nation's political leaders. no other military man was as central to the civil war as was henry w. "old brains" halleck. most are saying oh, gee, that's nice. who cares? that's the usual attitude and that's the usual response that we get. over the years, most historians have not had a positive evaluation of this man and. instead, i think it's fair to say that historians have vied

with one another to come up with ingenious ways to denigrate henry w. halleck. you know, we heard all about buchanon and nasty things said about buchanon. can't compare to what was said about henry w. halleck. for example, british historian j.f. fuller said, quote, halleck was, by nature, not only stupid, but jealous and ambitious. he was a witless petant who without fear of contradiction was throughout the war worth more than that proverbial army corps to the confederate army. that's pretty strong stuff. t. harry williams, his famous book. wonderful book, the lincoln and the generals and williams, pardon me, said this about henry halleck. he said, quote, halleck had the

reputation of being the most unpopular man in washington. it was a title he worked hard to gain. warming to the task harry said, quote, because of his eyes which williams described as, quote, bulging, fishy, watery and dull. a lot of gossips in washington thought he was an opium eater. i'm not sure we've ever said that about buchanon, but we sure said it about halleck. now i've just given you a couple here and there are tons of similar things by historian, but they pale in comparison to what was said about him by his contemporaries. the negative view of halleck is absolutely overwhelming. you really have to look hard to find anybody -- anybody in

american history who has had such ingenious contempt expressed about him which is ironic because during the war the two leading figures on the union side, ulysses s. grant and willi william tacumseh sherman liked halleck. he was one of the greatest men of the age and sherman believed, quote, he was the directing genius, old brain, i guess, behind union military successes. now in all fairness, however, by the end of the war, neither grant nor sherman liked halleck a great deal because they found out some of the things that he was doing. most other union generals were negative about halleck from the very beginning. fighting joel hooker who had this great name never was a

friend of halleck's, not in california when they were there together nor during the civil war, and as only hooker could, he ridiculed his heavy -- halleck's heavy administrative role and his unwillingness to take the field. you may have heard this quote. halleck serving as commanding general said hooker, serving under those conditions was like being a man who got married and never intended to sleep with his wife. i didn't make that up. that's what hooker said. george b. mclellan -- mclellan. i can't think of too many people he really likeded. okay, is that better? mclellan who had little good to

say about anybody, other than himself, i suppose, became positively lyrical in his disdain for halleck, quote, of all the men i have encountered in small position, halleck was the most hopelessly stupid. it was more difficult to get an idea through his head, continuing the quote, than can be conceived by anyone who never made the attempt. i do not think he ever had a correct military idea from beginning to end. well, those kind of condemnations when added with the condemnations of historians are bad enough, but they still don't reach the level of invective displayed by halleck's political contemporaries, the people that he dealt with

regularly in washington. bluff ben wade. remember him, almost became president at one time, quote, put halleck in command of 20,000 men, says bluff ben wade and he will not scare three sitting geese from their nests. adam goroweski described how much role in the war effort was, quote, the strangling pressure of an incubus. i had to look incubus up. that's an evil spirit. so that says something, but that's still not the two most inventive comments. i still think these maybe are better. you can decide and you can pick which ones you like the best, but the two most inventive critics of halleck were still another politician and another

mrit -- this time a political general. namely, a navy secretary, gideon wells and general benjamin butler. wells despised old brains with a passion. here's what he wrote in his diary, quote, in this whole summer's campaign, halleck originates nothing, anticipates nothing, takes no responsibility, plans nothing, suggests nothing, is good for nothing general ben butler agrees, and his prose is similarly inventive, i think. you may know that halleck translated on to the four-volume biography of napoleon, and he --

and butler used that against halleck. he said, quote, at a moment when every true man is laboring to his utmost. when the days ought to be 40 hours long, general halleck is translating french books at 9 cents a page, and sir, if you should put those 9 cents in a box and shake them up you would form a clear idea of general halleck's soul. wow! wouldn't you like to have that said about you? an actual fact, halleck didn't translate during the war. he translated in 1840s when he was on a ship going around the horn. he actually braced himself and he tied himself to a bed post so he wouldn't slip and he was

translating it that time. who was this henry halleck, then, if i'm saying there's more to him than that? well, he was born in 1815. he's the first of 13 children of a farmer, and a daughter of a local magistrate, and they were all from upstate new york, westernville, not too far from utica, new york. until he was 16, halleck lived a very unhappy childhood and the reason for it was because he could not get out from under his father who wanted him to work on that farm. that's all he wanted to do. halleck wanted an education. so what halleck had to do to escape this agricultural drudgery, he went to live with his maternal grandfather who was able to give halleck the

education he so wanted. at the age of 20, halleck went to west point, but while he's at west point he's finishing his degree at union college in new york and he get his degree while he's in the middle of his west point years and he also gets one of the first phi beta kappa keys from the founding college, union college. during his third year at halleck, he gave the fourth of july address and the fourth of julioration at west point. this was an honor left for the best military and academic scholars. he graduated in 1838, a mere third in his class and by the way, the two people ahead of him didn't do a thing during the civil war. he so impressed the faculty that even while he was still a cadet,

henry halleck was teaching classes to other west point cadets. when he graduated from west point they immediately imnahhed him an assistant professor of chemistry and engineering. in 1841 he published what was his first of many books. wonderful title. by human, its varieties and properties of use. a very learned book and no doubt, very scintillating. i have to admit, i've never read it, but it deals with a topic that most historians never talk about. military historians don't talk about the benefit of asphalt to military operations when you think about it. that's a major issue. who can understand the book, though? well that book and the fact that he was the one that fortified new york harbor and he served an

assistant to the federal government's board of engineers resulted in an offer from harvard university to become an assistant professor there. he wanted to stay in the army. he received an honorary masters degree from union college. he made a trip to europe in 1844 to inspect french fortifications, one of those americans who went there. this fame, in turn, caused the lowell institute of boston which is really a group of amateur people who would invite famous people to give lectures. they invited henry halleck not to give one measly lecture and give 12 lectures one night after the next, filled the hall every night. these lectures were later gathered together and published in his major book elements of

military art and science which came out in 1846. keep in mind, all these things that happened before, he is 31 years old. 31 years old. so he travels and the mexican war comes and he travels to california and sherman is one of his bunk mates on this terrible ride they have with waves going up and down, et cetera, say he didn't waste any time and everybody else is playing cards including sherman and reading novels and all of the rest and he's transforming volumes. napoleon from french to english and he creates that four-volume english version that you can still get if you'd like and that appeared in 1864. well, they were going to monterey, california so he's not

in the main part of the war, but he's in california, a very important area of the war. when he gets there, they're still fighting to be done. so he participates in some local-level fighting, and he does very well. he's a very good, small unit commander. he also serves as secretary of state for the entire territory of california after he becomes part of the united states and he serves under several military governors, and if that's not enough to keep him busy, he also is collecting spanish manuscripts. he's translating mexican law relative to california land holdings into publications. he helps form the major law firm in california, halleck, peachy and billings. he supervised the construction

of a four-story building -- four-story building that was built out in the fill of san francisco harbor and he came up with the brilliant idea of actually taking redwood, making a platform, something like 40-feet deep and building a four-story building on top of it and you know what? when the great earthquake came and the 20th century, that building withstood the earthquake. why? because it moved. that building stayed okay until about the 1920s and the 1930s when they had to inject cement to stabilize it, which was fine, but then as only americans can do in the 1950s. it was leveled for a parking lot.

it was leveled for a parking lot, and if you want to know where it is today, take a look at san fran fcisco, the transamerican tower and that's the spot where it existed. he's an architect on top of everything else and a major, major architect, but he's doing other thing, too. that's not enough to keep him busy. he also is an influential member, really the influential member of the california -- of the california constitutional convention. he became also the director general and the guy who ran the operation of a major quicksilver mind in california, and you say, well, big deal, but without that quicksilver mine the gold rush and the gold that was discovered could not be separated from the rock that it was in. so it's a very, very important

role that he plays. he's also the inspector of california's lighthouses. he's a member of the first board of directors of the society of california pioneers and it is said, although it's disappeared, but how it disappeared is beyond me, but he wrote a 700-page history of california. this was, i guess, in his spare time. he resigns from the army in 1854. a lot of people resign as grant resigns, sherman resign, and halleck resigned and the reason halleck resigns is so he can give his full attention to his law firm. and by the way, too, he's also president of the pacific and atlantic railroad which ran from san francisco to san jose. i remember going to the bancroft library at the university of

california and looking through the old card catalog which was then still being used and what did they have? they had a map of this railroad, this is great. can i see that? next thing i know one of the people is coming up with a piece of plywood wider than this and wider than this with a map for the railroad and it's not a long distance from san jose to san francisco, but that was meant to be the end of the transcontinental railroad. it never was, but that was the plan, so halleck was involved in that, too. and for good measure he push lirli published more books on land law and he wrote on textbooks and colleges and universities of the united states into the 20th

century and for good measure, he was also major general of the california militia. so that's not bad for one person to do in that short period of time. well, there's a problem, is there not? i told you about successes and i told you how many people thought he was a total loser, and it didn't take me long even as dumb as i am, and it didn't take me long to figure out that there say difference between halleck and the pre-civil war years and halleck in the civil war years. he was a success at one time he was a failure at another time. well, it was january of about -- i'm guessing 2000 or so, 1999 and i'm giving a talk about

halleck to you familiar with the civil war education association and has a symposium in florida and many of you i know go there in sarasota. well, i gave some sort of talk on halleck and i confessed to the audience that i didn't really know much about halleck, and i didn't understand why he had such contrasting -- such a contrasting personality, successful, yet a failure, it seemed. so i asked these people and i said i'm writing to letters to the editor and all of these thing, asking for any information on henry halleck particularly this question of why is he a success and then he's a failure? well, it didn't take long. i just about finished and it just so happened that in that audience there were several medical doctors, at least four that i talked to, anyway, and

there were others because they said they had talked to others, too, but several individually came up to me after the talk and asked, had i thought about the possibility that halleck had graves disease. graves' disease is a thyroid gland problem. maybe this is why there's such a difference between success and failure, and i had to admit i never thought about the physical, medical stuff like that, but i said i'm going to sure look into it. so what -- what these physicians and these people at this conference urge me to do, and i did was to consider the impact of health on halleck's behavior. . so what i started doing in my

research was i started making a list, making a list of symptoms that he talked about at various times, and i also talked to some medical doctors, and i also got to thinking, you know, maybe there's something there psychological that i ought to be looking at. so i also talked to some psychologists and people who work for this kind of thing and it was a big thrill because one of these people is my own son who has a ph.d and has a practice and teaches and all so it was great to listen to people talk about that. well, i learned pretty quickly that this man had a lot of physical problems and my wife is not able to be here with me. she always comes to these things and she always starts to cringe if i talk about halleck because she knows i'm going to say this. one of the big problems halleck

had was he had hemorrhoids. don't talk about that. they called them piles in those days, but you know what i'm getting at. in those days the common medical thing to do if you had hemorrhoids and if you went to a physician is that you would -- they would give you an opium suppository. now i leave it up to your imaginations from this point on, but in any case, that's what you did. he was so sick with hemorrhoids during the war that he literally could not stand up. he had to lie down sideways on a couch for a week or so until he got over all of this stuff, so opium suppositories, and i found

other things, too, not as glamorous as that, but i found other things, too. so i consulted with these medical people and these psychologists and all, and several of them are mentioned in my book, and if you really, really want to be bored i have this that i wrote up about my conversations with them and what halleck had and didn't have and all the rest, but in any case, what i came up with was no, he did not have graves' disease. it looks like he suffered, looking at the whole range of his physical background, he suffered from something known as heem on chromes tois. heemo chromatosis can cause lassitude, and it can cause a lot of other symptoms. there was one other thing that

some of you know who jean baker is. she's written many, many wonderful books and she wrote a book on mary lincoln and i was at the lincoln forum. i was talking to her and her husband happened to be there and he was chief of surgery at johns hopkins. so we got talking about halleck, and he said i don't know anything about this, but i know some people who know something and you ought to look at mercury poisoning because he was in charge of the mercury thing. so i did. he sent me some kinds of learned articles and some of which i understood, but the point was i didn't think it was mercury poisoning. that didn't -- hemochromatosis seemed to be the issue, and then another issue that struck me right between the eye, the psychological issues. he suffered from terrible psychological problems because of his very bad relationship

with his father and with his family. with his father when he left to live with the maternal grandfather, he never came back. he wrote letters to his mother and never mentioned the father, and never came to his funeral and there was this very, very big break, but in any case, and then there were other issues and he was actually born a twin, but the girl whose name was katherine, same name as his mother died in child birth and some of the psychologists say there is a psychological trauma that develops in cases like that where people blame themselves for being -- why am i living and why did she die, and her name was the same name as my mother, and there was a lot of other issues that are involved. so what i'm saying here is that halleck did not become a failure

suddenly in the civil war, that the seeds of these war-time problems were evident even during the time of his success. it's much more complicated than this, as you can imagine, so i'm going to do shamelessly tell you, buy the book and read all about it and i would be happy, happy to talk about it any time and be sure to buy one for your neighborhood physician and psychologist because i think that would be nice, too. so what can we say finally? just who was this old brains halleck? i think he was -- and again, that's my interpretation. he was many things. he was a success in his life, but he was also a failure. he was a very brilliant man, but he was also stupid. they weren't making some of

these things up. he had very few friends yet he had many important acquaintances both in his military and business lives. he inspired the deepest anelocity in people. he was a nasty human being, no question about this, yet, he never tried to adjust his behavior to mollify his critics. >> and we talked about the hemorrhoid problem, he said i wouldn't say that hemorrhoids would cause him to be a failure in the civil war, but it could explain, and i quote him, it could explain why he was such a mean son of a bitch. so it seems to me that he certainly played a major role in

the union victory. no question in my mind, but i think he's a lot like rodney dangerfield. remember him? he gets no respect, and that's too bad, i think, because we can learn a lot from this man who was one of the major americans of the 19th century. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> as you know, i wear a hearing aid and i'd love to answer questions you may have, but if you do, yell them at me because i may or may not hear you. >> the floor mikes are open for questions. >> i'm lee elder from talmage, ohio, and i have to ask this question. who was hated more?

braxton hag or henry halleck? >> well, i think -- i think braxton hag was probably more hated and maybe even more hated by lifterians. you know the story about a famous historian writing the first volume of his biography of braxton brag getting to hate him so much he never wrote his second volume and made one of his graduate students do it. but then i did the biography of halleck so what does that say about me? i don't know. >> thank you. >> thank you. justin sinclair, vermont. at the very beginning of your lecture you mentioned that after halleck came to washington he was involved in every major decision. can you think of any player and i'll even open it up to north or south that could have done his

job almost as well or as well or better than he did. >> everybody hear that? >> yeah. is there anybody else that could have done that job? i'm sure there was, but sometimes people say, you know, lincoln really blew it when he appointed halleck instead of grant to be commanding general back there in 1862. i don't think so. i don't think grant would have done the job. i think grant grew into that position. sherman couldn't have done it. the thing about halleck was that he was somehow able -- even though it esteemed people because he wouldn't make decisions and he would say, look, you're the commander on the battlefield. you make the decision. i'm far away. i can't do this, but the result was that oftentimes the decisions -- even when people

asked him like burnside did, he wouldn't -- he wouldn't answer, but could there have been anyone else? i don't know of anybody and keep in mind that one of the happiest days of henry halleck's life was when lincoln named grant to be commanding general because now he's free and he doesn't have to make these decisions and what he can do is and he does it is he can write letters to the various generals and general grant says you better shape up or we'll get rid of you so he was very happy to do that, but i don't. i really don't know of anybody -- anybody else that -- that's one of the problems and it's easy for us, as was said in the earlier session, easy for us to be critical, but we're not wearing the same shoes. >> i read your book and i enjoyed it and i would like to check my understanding with you

as far as his relationship with grant. it seems to me that at first he figured grant wasn't doing the paperwork correctly and that's why grant was a lousy general in his eyes and it seemed to me as though he thought that he had taught grant how to do the paperwork correctly and that's why grant turned into a success. is that true? >> yes and no. your first part i think is correct. halleck can't believe that grant can be so sloppy with his paperwork, and it's true. it's true, halleck not only tried to teach grant, but he tried to teach all of his other generals. there was a very famous letter that grant has his chief of staff send to all his generals saying this is the way i want you to fold letters when you send them to me. and you're right. he doesn't think grant is a good

general because he's so sloppy. for example, halleck defends grant after shiloh, but he still calls grant on the carpet and says you really screwed up. not so much in the battle, and i don't say the surprise, but afterward, you've just been sloppy. look at the mess out here. you've done nothing to get things organized, so, yeah, that's -- and the interesting thing is that halleck when he and mclellan are talking about grant brings up the fake news of grant's being a drunk, and grant doesn't know this. he doesn't know this until adam bedo, his aid is helping him and they come across the lers that make this point. that's it. that's it. yes. anything else? >> can you comment on his

relationship with abraham lincoln and what lincoln thought about him? is there anything public on that? >> good question. abraham lincoln, you've heard the famous statement, abraham lincoln said he's a mere clerk. >> he also said, of course, i have to like him because if i don't like him nobody will. lincoln is very frustrated by halleck for this reason. he brings halleck onboard because lincoln is smart enough to know that he doesn't know a whole lot about military stuff. of course, he knows a lot more than he thinks and by the end of the war he's teaching his general, but at this particular time lincoln wants somebody learned in the skill in the military skills to be at his side to help him organize the union war effort. i want you to tell me what i should do and halleck won't do

it. he just simply takes the position -- in fact, he almost resigns. he offers to resign. if you make me tell you what i think ought to be done, i'll resign and lincoln throws up his hand, and i think lincoln may be understood that this is it. this is the best i've got. this guy knows his stuff. maybe i can teach him. maybe i can work him in to say some things, but lincoln is not a great supporter -- well, he's a supporter of halleck, but i wouldn't say they were close and halleck had a personality as we talked about so i don't know. yes, sir? >>. >> john bessette in springfield, virginia, and i had an education in engineering. i can see the engineer in halleck all the way from what you said about his biography. also the fact that he had that hemorrhoid problem tells you he

would not have been a good general in the field going with a combat army and trying to direct in combat. that's right. >> that's very true. >> you don't see halleck in the saddle very often. let's just put it that way. >> as you probably know and harold can tell you more about this than i know, but at the beginning of the war particularly there were stock images of everything about a person's head with horses doing all sorts of wonderful things and so there is a picture of halleck in the saddle, but he's not a battlefield general. his corinth campaign comes down to the fact that he's got to make sure there will be no surprise. he's going to make sure that everything he does is according to the book and yet by the end

of the war, maybe it's sherman and maybe it's grant and maybe it's lincoln have taught halleck that war has changed. you've got to change and you've got to take a different approach and so you have halleck saying things at the end of the war that he would never say at the beginning of the war, but there's just not any relationship. yes, sir? >> good morning. dave from harpswell, maine. i just have to compliment you on how much i appreciate your talk this morning and it's nice to see someone peel back the know onand look at the entire life and successes, failures and contributing factors. i think too many of us are quick to be critical of people without knowing all the facts and again, as time goes back trying to find all of the facts that contributed to a person's life, their successes and failures. so i just wanted to compliment you, and i appreciate it. >> i've often thought about

that. you heard about the great man theory of history and all and one thing we historians do, and one thing i blame myself when i was teaching is we tend to look for perfection and maybe a better thing for us to do would be to look at ourselves. you know, we're good at something. all of us have got some skills that we're good at, but i don't know of any human being that's good at everything. that's going to be absolutely perfect at everything, and i think sometimes with people like halleck, that's what we expect. we expect them since he was a -- and by the way, he was one of the wealthiest guys in the united states and he was over $500 and we expect somebody to be good at everything, and we don't expect our people and the people we study to have flaws and certainly halleck had flaws

and certainly lincoln had flaws. everybody has flaws. the question is what do we do with it? how do we overcome what flaws we have to make achievements, to do things that we are asked to do in a particular time. so thank you very much. i appreciate your attention. [ applause ] . >> this is american history tv programs. you've been watching a discussion normally seen weekends here on c-span3. today, discussions on the civil war. coming up, general armstrong custer. how he advanced to where he did and his impact on the civil war, followed by political cartoonist thomas naft a thomas nast and his illustration during the civil war and the impact of braxton bragg and the commander of the army of tennessee and called the most hated man of the confederacy.

american history tv continues tonight in prime time with recent civil war conferences. tonight, programs from day three of the gettysburg college civil war institute conference including discussions on union general george g. meade and the experiences of escaped union prisoners of war. american history tv prime time begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> coming up this weekend on american history tv on c-span3. saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on reel america, the 1944 u.s. office of war film why we fight. the battle of china. three facts must never be forgotten. china is history china is land and china is people. on sunday at 11:30 a.m. eastern,

political economy professor and author robert wright on alexander hamilton's views of the national debt. >> hamilton advised the creation of an energetic, efficient government, one that did one thing well for as little money as possible and that one thing was to protect americans' lives, liberty and property from tyrants, foreign and domestic. >> then at 7:00 p.m. eastern, new jersey residents and activists discuss the 1967 newark rebellion. >> there were 268 reports of sniper fire, zero snipers were ever found. >> zero. >> no evidence of any snipers. no gun shells other than the police gun shells. no footprint, no fingerprints, nothing was found and yet 26 people were killed, one policeman, one fireman and the rest citizens all by the three police forces that were

operating. >> american history tv all weekend, every weekend only on c-span3. >> we've been on the road meeting winners of this year's student cam video competition at royal oak high school in oil oak, michigan. first-place winner jared clarke won a prize of $3,000 for his documentary on the rising cost of pharmaceutical drugs and the second-place prize of $1500 went to classmate mary siar for her documentary on mass incarceration and mandatory minimum sentencing. also, third-place winner rebecca messner won a prize of $750 for her documentary on gender inequality. and $150 for her documentary on the relationship between the police and the media. thank you to all the students who participated in our 2017 student cam video documentary

competition. to watch any of the videos go to studentcam.org and student cam 2018 starts in september with the theme, the constitution and you. we're asking students to choose any provision of the u.s. constitution and create an illustration on why the creation is important. >> next, from the civil war institute at gettysburg college, t.j. styles who won the pulitzer prize in history for his book, custer's trial, a life on the frontier of the new america. he describes the military career and also his relationship with his wife libby and his post-civil war career. this is about an hour. >> all right. i am pete carmichael and i am also the director of the civil institute ask it's