and communism and national security. reflecting on lessons learned and ignored during the war. >> we learned the limits of military power during the vietnam war. we learned that as a society, as a culture that you can't kill an idea with a bullet. >> northwestern history tv this weekend, only on c-span3. >> interested in american history tv? visit our website, c-span.org/history. you can view our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs and watch college lectures, museum lectures and archival films and more. up next on american history tv, former national park chief historian, robert sutton, explained why new england

abolitionists immigrated to kansas and their efforts to make kansas a free state and their impact on the civil war. >> good morning, everyone and welcome to the watkins. it's my distinct pleasure and honor to welcome our keynote speaker today. mr. robert k. sutton. mr. sutton retired as chief historian of the national park service in 2016, after serving in the position for nearly nine years. he came here after being superintendent of the manassas state park for 12 useful years and published articles and reviews on various history topics. one of his primary interests as chief historian and superintendent at manassas was heeding the emphasis on expanding the interpretation of the civil war for the

centennial. he is assisting commission staff in developing interpretive programs to commemorate the centennial of world war i and currently working on a book on world war i aimed at middle school children. he has continued teaching and teaches courses in the john hopkins senior adult program on the world west and will be on the viking ocean cruises as well. he has written a book published by sky horse publishing in august, 2017. ers he and his son, lee, are editing an autobiography written by his father and lee's grandfather. with that, i would like to introduce mr. robert k. sutton.

>> good morning. >> good morning. >> i can't tell you how excited i am to be here. this is -- i mean i'm sitting here with goosebumps while i'm hearing the names of the victims of quantrel's raid and you actually hear about them in this setting, it's actually quite moving. i have, before i get going here, my wife and my son came with me, they're in the back row, and two of my oldest, oldest friends from california, and i'm going to tell you, we were all like 5 years old when we got acquainted, sitting here on the second row, gary colter and rick anderson. so this is a very special day for me. one of the things that interested me in this topic, was that my great, i got to say -- sometimes you have trouble keeping track of the great, great, greats, but my great, great, great grandmother, my

great great-grandfather and my great grandfather immigrated to kansas in 1855. and my great great great-grandmother lived to be 89 here in kansas. and my great grandfather was in the kansas cavalry and fought in the civil war. so i have a special attachment to kansas. with that, let me get going here, on may 24th an african-american american man by the name of anthony burns was arrested on his way home from work. he worked in a men's clothing store in boston. he had not murdered anyone, he had not assaulted anyone, he had not embezzled money from his company he had not robbed anyone at gunpoint and he had not run a stoplight. he was arrested for theft, but not theft as we think of it today. he had stolen himself.

this was 1854, and he was a fugitive slave from virginia. his owner had tracked him down to boston, he was captured, he was thrown into jail, because in 1854, a fugitive slave, either leaving or being taken away from his plantation was a serious crime. the reaction to the citizens of boston was instantaneous and violent. two days office he was arrested, 7,000 bostonians broke into the jail to try to release him, and in the melee, one u.s. marshall was killed and a number were injured. on may 27, three days after burns was arrested. he was brought before the federal magistrate by his owner for what amounted to a hearing. it really wasn't a hearing, because there wasn't much anybody could do under the fugitive slave law to return a slave to slavery.

so the magistrate made the determination that he was a slave and ordered him returned to slavery. on june 2nd, if you're keeping track of this, just a few days later, 2,000 soldiers, u.s. soldiers and marines escorted anthony burns to boston harbor to a ship to return into slavery. 50,000 bostonians turned out. there wasn't much they could do. because they weren't going to take on the army. but they were -- as you might imagine, very, very upset about the whole thing. the cost to the federal government to return one slave to bondage was somewhere between $40,000 and $100,000 in 1854 money. to add insult to injury, on may 30th, when all this was going on

with anthony burns, president franklin pierce signed the kansas-nebraska act that i bet 99.4% know would have happened. the people of kansas and nebraska got to decide whether they wanted slavery. that was the kansas-nebraska act. there's a possibility at least one, maybe two slave states would be added to the union. now, boston was really a hotbed of anti-slavery active at the time. for the most part, the conservative businessmen sort of were on the sidelines during this whole debate over slavery. but with the capture of anthony burns, one particular bostonian businessman by the name of amos adams lawrence, does that name sound familiar?

he was so upset by the whole affair, that he wrote a letter to his uncle. and in the letter, he said, we went to bed old-fashioned conservative compromised union wigs and waked up stark mad abolitionists. and from that moment on, adams put much of his energy and his money into ending slavery. now he came from a very wealthy family. his father and his uncle were very successful textile merchants in boston. so they made a lot of money. but they're also very generous with their money. his uncle, amos's uncle abbott lawrence, gave 50,000 dollars to harvard to establish a science and engineering school. at that time it was the largest donation that was made to any school in the country. and his father who also was named amos, retired early and

spent most of his time doing philanthropy, so that was something that amos the soon took over. at one point in his diary he wrote that he hoped he would make enough money in his businesses to continue to support all the programs that were important to him. with his newfound stark mad abolitionism, you're probably wondering where that comes from, he quickly had an opportunity to put his money from his mouth was, because a gentleman from massachusetts by the name of eli theyer, who was a member of the massachusetts legislature had just created the immigrant aid company and the purpose was to have interest in kansas. in the anti-slavery movement in kansas. but mostly to make it as easy as portable for people from new england to migrate to kansas. theyer was a really good idea

person, not so much a good business person, and the company was sort of teetering when a mutual acquaintance introduced theyer and lawrence, and so they connected in a partnership in which theyer had the good ideas, lawrence had the money, and all of a sudden was very successful. lawrence realized that what was really important at this early stage was to have -- was to get people to kansas as quickly as possible. so he underwrote a survey party to go to kansas. and then he made a commitment to invest as much money as was necessary to make the trip to kansas as easy as possible, and then to make it as easy as possible for the people who got there to make a living. so he sent a scouting party, and the scouting party reported back and very quickly, the first immigrant party went to kansas

arrived here august 1, 1854. so if you're looking at the timeline, you know, the thing with anthony burns was may, he was returned to slavery in june. so in a very short time, actually less than two months, they had the first immigrant party going to kansas. well, a number of immigrant parties followed this first one. they decided about when the second one arrived, they decided to name their town and they were deciding of all kinds of names, boston, wakarusa, because that was a nearby river. they decided to name it lawrence after amos lawrence because everybody knew how much money he put into it. one of the local residents had a cute quote. the name sounded good and it didn't have a bad odor anywhere in the union. so they decided to stick with the name lawrence. very early, almost right as soon as the town was founded, there were three newspapers.

and from the herald of freedom, which lasted longer than any of the first three, and which is by the way, online, if you're interested in looking at it, i did. you can really get a sense of how quickly lawrence developed, it had a number of ads in the paper, there were -- he talked about businesses being established. actually it developed so quickly it almost was filled up before they knew what to do with all the people that came. well, as you remember, from the kansas-nebraska act, it was up to the people of kansas, whether they wanted to have slavery or not. the pro slavery side, from missouri, was almost certain that the state would be a slave state. why not? missouri's right next door, the strongest slavery plantations were right next door. so they assumed it was going to

become a slave state. so they were kind of alarmed when they saw all of these anti slavery people coming into kansas. now, the pro slavery people of missouri actually wanted to make the state a slave state, but they didn't even mind playing dirty, in fact they were looking forward to playing dirty. so the first territorial governor, by the name of anthony reeder, one of his first jobs was to take a census of the territory and the purpose of that was to elect a territorial legislature shortly that have. so when they had the territorial election, people from missouri, hoards of people from missouri, flooded across the border, east -- either scared away or so intimidated, most of the native can sans, that they won the election. to give you a sense of

how overwhelming this was, according to the 1885 census, 2,378 males were eligible to vote in kansas. the vote was held shortly there after. but 6,307 voted. now, obviously they probably missed a few, you know, you can't catch everybody, but not 4,000. to give you another -- a little bit more specifics here. lawrence, according to the census had 369 males eligible to vote but 1,034 voted. well -- we talk about -- you've heard all kinds of things. you don't have to be even too savvy to look at the news to realize there's all kinds of talk about fraudulent election, rigged elections, voter suppression, blah, blah well this is a real thing. no doubt about this. so what happened was the

territorial legislature was made up of missourians. they had no intention of ever living in kansas. in fact, they moved the first, the first capital to shawnee mission almost right on the missouri border so they could come across and do their business. the first thing they did was to pass one of the harshest slave codes in american history. to give you an example, if anyone tried to incite a slave rebellion, it was punishable by death. the kansas-nebraska act clearly stated the territorial election would be elected by the territory, so the election was clearly illegal. but president pierce, who was a northerner, decided to side with the south and with the pro slavery side and declared the pro slavery legislature was legal.

so the power of the federal government was behind this illegal but legal pro slavery legislature. continue now the free state kansasans, they decided they weren't going to sit around and let this happen. so they created their own government. they elected a legislature and a governor. this also was illegal. so we have two illegal territorial legislatures. one is backed by federal government. the other is not. but they're both illegal. president franklin pierce, as i said, sided with the pro slavery legislature. and he decided that the free

state legislature was not only illegal, but it was treasonous. so he had all the leaders of this free state party arrested and thrown in jail for treason. now the leader of the free state party had been the main business man in kansas for the company. his name was charles robinson. that name might be familiar to a lot of you, but he was the leader of the free state movement. so charles robinson and i think six other kansasans were arrested for treason. the grand jury that indicted robinson and the others, they also indicted the free state hotel and the newspapers. now how in the world could you say that a newspaper and a hotel is treason? well, they did. and that's become significant later on.

well to the pro slavery folks in missouri, lawrence was sort of like a scab that needed to be picked. lawrence became the, the center of attack for these missourians. in 1855, the missourians lined up on the outskirts of lawrence, ready to attack. they quickly realized the people of lawrence were well train and well armed. so the missourians backed off and the wakarusa war was a war this i wish all wars were. no bloodshed. actually, a free state man was killed on his way to lawrence. he became a martyr. the chapter in my book, i call it the almost bloodless war. they backed off. but what's interesting and what's an interesting thing

about the i think the kansas at this time, especially the free state side of kansas, was the role of women. there were two free state women. margaret wood and lois brown. who joined their husbands and defying the pro slavery forces. in the wakarusa war, they took a wagon through missouri pro slavery lines to a cache of weapons and ammunition outside of lawrence. they loaded on the wagon, came back through town so they provided all these goodies for their husbands. antislavery husbands. but what's interesting is that these two women and a number of other women were equal partners to their husbands in the antislavery moment. something unusual at the time. one woman who i really sort of got attached to through this whole thing is sarah robinson. the wife of charles robinson.

in 1856, she wrote a book that was called the -- i'll get it here in a minute. kansas, it's interior and exterior life. wrote it in 1856. she beautifully chronicled the life in kansas and it became very influential in the east. people in the east read it. recognized what was going on in the east and lawrence and kansas and she had a very important role in the early history of kansas. also when her husband was being held for treason. she went to boston. she worked with amos lawrence to get her husband and the rest of these captives released. she had a very important role. now the people of lawrence recognized they were targets and had to defend themselves and

they were very successful in working with amos lawrence and horace greeley and others in the east in acquiring the called shark's rifles. they shipped them to kansas in interesting ways. they called them bibles and books. they would take them apart and put them back together when they got to kansas. the other person who helped raise money for this was the ref rend henry ward beecher from new york. a lot of these were called beecher's bibles. and someone asked him why he did this as a christian minister, why did he raise the money for these bibles. he said one sheriff's rifle had more power with pro slavery folks than 100 bibles. and he said you might as well

read bibles to buffaloes as try to convince these folks that they're wrong. so it's kind of a, kind of a fun story. but while the, while charles robinson and some of the others were being held in prison, the pro slavery missourians again attacked lawrence. this time, they had the federal government behind them. the army behind them. it was called a sack of lawrence. the free state hotel was blown up and burned. we actually stayed overnight at the ellsworth hotel, which is i think the third it ration of the free state hotel last night. so the free state hotel was burned. the newspapers were, they were not burned, but they scattered, ruined the presses through all of the type and the river and scattered around.

number of houses were burned. so even though folks in lawrence were armed to the teeth with the finest weapons available, lawrence and robinson warned a people of kansas not to become violent. they felt it was important not to become violent. but one in kansas, gentleman by the name of john brown, decided that the generally passive approach of the anti-slavery approach was not working too well. so he was not a resident of lawrence, he lived in a number of miles south of lawrence. but he, his sons and others murdered five pro slavery settlers here potowamie creek which touched off attacks and counterattacks for months. it was called bleeding kansas. pro and anti-slavery militias attacked each other in open warfare. one free state militia called the lawrence stubs.

isn't that great? i love that name. lawrence stubs. attacked pro slavery strongholds in and around lawrence. they acquired a cannon that would been confiscated from them in the sack of lawrence but they only had handful of cannon balls, so they got the people to collect the type from the herald of freedom that had been scattered around and molded this into cannon balls. so the next time they attacked the fort, the cannonier as he fired one of the shots off, said here is the edition of the herald freedom. i love that. that's one of my favorite things from the whole story. well the violence nearly stopped in 1856 when the new governor by the name of john geary became the territorial governor. he made it clear he was not going take sides and was not going be free state.

so he made it very clear, but also put his money where his mouth was. so the missourians were all ready to attack lawrence yet again for a third time. he sent the army down overnight and they stopped the third, what would have been the third attack on lawrence. but also, as the soldiers were marching back to lee compton, territorial capital, lawrence stubbs were coming back from an attack on b a pro slavery stronghold, he arrested them as well. so he made it clear he wasn't going to side with the pro slavery or antislavery sides. in 1857, things began to change because there was a new election for a territorial legislature and this time, the missourians didn't cross the border and abolitionists final won an election fair and square. the new free state territorial legislature tore down and built up new laws for kansas the first thing they did was to rescind all of the pro slavery laws.

but before they became the state, the territorial legislature, the pro slavery legislature called for a constitutional convention, the lee compton constitution. this gets really confusion. i should have a black board to write this stuff up here. the free state legislature had written a constitution in 1856. and they sent it to congress. a constitution for the, for the state of kansas. it didn't pass congress. really didn't have much of chance to pass, so the lee compton constitution was the second constitution. it was prepared by the pro slavery side. sent to congress. they had a vote in kansas, but the antislavery folks boycotted the election, so it won, but just by a tiny fraction of residents in kansas. now the new president at the time, james buchanan, wanted

kansas to be admitted as a slave state. so he did everything he could to get the lee compton constitution through congress. congress refused to pass it. sent it back to kansas for another vote. the kansas voted it down. the new legislature actually, the new territorial actually wrote two new constitutions. so are you keeping track? three, one, two, three. four, actually, had a chance of passing was because the constitutional convention for the fourth one actually had a very balanced membership to write the constitution. it went to congress. it had really no chance of passing because the congress was so horribly divided. how about the term dysfunctional? they really couldn't pass any significant legislation, but as

soon as the south succeeded and the legislators, the congress people from the north, the south, left with their states that succeeded, now there was enough votes for kansas to be admitted so kansas was admitted to union on eve of the civil war. now when the civil war started, there was no state in the country probably more prepared for the civil war than kansas. because they had been through all this bleeding kansas. and what's interesting is that kansas provided more soldiers per capita and has more casualties per capita than any other northern state. and it was a you know, just a really, really, they were just admitted. they decided to play their part. what's interesting about lawrence, one of the things i

find really fascinating, not only was it a stronghold of the free party and abolitionists in kansas, it was very, very welcoming to african-americans. before the civil war, fugitives primarily from missouri would come to lawrence. they knew they had a chance to be rescued if they could find their way to lawrence. but a lot of free african-americans also came to lawrence, what's interesting is that there are some of the folks in lawrence had a real, they were really conflicted with this issue of fugitive slaves because all they knew slavery was wrong. they knew to try to do something to end slavery. they were very conflicted because they knew they were breaking the law. they knew they would be thrown in jail if they were caught trying to harbor a fugitive slave.

one person, fascinating, richard cordially. cordley. he wrote two wonderful histories of lawrence. he wrote in one of his books that he was, when he was a student at andover seminary in the east, the fugitive slave law was passed and he said that when he saw it, he decided it was the sum of all vilanies. he said if he had a chance to do something about it, he would do whatever he could to help slaves that escaped. when he was confronted to put his money where his mouth was, he said it's easy to talk bravely from 1,000 miles away, but it's very difficult to make a decision about this when you have the opportunity. one of his parishioners came to him and asked if he and his wife, they didn't have any children, would keep an escaped slave woman by the name of lizzie in their house. he said when the opportunity

presented itself, there's only one thing to do. so he and his wife kept lizzie in their house for a period of time until she was able, they were actually able to sneak her out of the state into canada. so some of the people were conflicted, but some had no problem at all trying to help slaves escape. so there's one of my favorite people in this story was a man by the name of dr. john doy. he listed his profession as a hydropathic doctor. i think if you transit that, it probably means quack. [ laughter ] >> but, anyway, one of the things he did, he was a close associate of john brown. he actually would go into missouri to help not only to try to help slaves escape, he would steal them from their owners in missouri.

he wrote an autobiography, you can get it online. it's kind of cool. actually, there's a youtube, the story i'll get to in a minute. of him that you can pull up very easily. if i can do it, you can do it. any way, he in 1859, this is really kind of interesting. the people of lawrence asked him if he would help 12 free blacks leave lawrence and go to canada. he had helped i don't know how many dozen fugitive slaves escaped, but now, being asked to take free african-americans out of lawrence. he agrees to do it. he gets a few miles out of town and is arrested by missourians. this is kind of like, i'm sure you heard about al capone, but did all these horrible things but he was arrested for income tax evasion. john doy helped slaves escape, but when he was trying to help

free blacks and the reason is slave catchers would come in and try to kidnap them. he gets 12 miles out of town. he's arrested. taken to missouri. tried, convicted.tried. he is convicted. i won't go over the whole story. he's convicted to five years of hard labor. one of the really interesting stories is ten men from lawrence went to where he was being hel, they broke him out of jail, they took him back to lawrence, and there's a wonderful picture of they're now called the immortal ten. taken back to lawrence where he was a hero. well, what happened during the civil war was that kansas, there were guerillas in kansas called the jayhawkers.

if you've never heard the word jayhawkers, there's something wrong here. but jayhawkers were guerillas on the union side. they tried to control them. on the other side, on the confederate side, guerillas were not actually only legal but encouraged by the confederate government. it passed a ranger act. what it said that they were not only legal but they could be paid by the government, have their officers and so forth. one young man by the named of william clark, became a guerilla leader. and i have a little problem calling him a guerilla. to me he's really a thug. and by the time he finished he had some of the nastiest people you could imagine in his guerilla band. bloody bill anderson was part of

his band. towards the end people who were around him said that every time he was beginning to think of killing people he'd literally start foaming at the mouth. coal younger was part of the gang. frank james, and later his kid brother jesse james were part of this whole thing. everything came to a tragic head in 1863. and you've all about that because you've heard the names of the people that were killed in the raid on lawrence in 1863. there were about 400 guerillas that took part in the raid. they were directed to kill every man and every boy tall enough to hold a gun. and then you know about 200 were killed. and there's some we're not even sure about. so 200 more or less were killed. the raid i think was the most

gruesome act in the civil war. and i think many historians would agree with that. and the descriptions of some of the killings would just make you sick when you read them. i'm not going to read those, but there were also a number of remarkable escapes. so one african-american man, he took off running, ran for four miles, climbed up in a tree, thought he was safe only to realize a couple hours later when they left, they literally marched under the tree that he was in. but he was safe. he was not attacked. another story that i think was really kind of interesting was the night before the raid, a gentleman by the name of -- was in town to talk about the new railroad that was going to come to lawrence. so when the raid happened he ran into the house of the episcopal minister who happened to be away. the minister's wife helped him

shave off his beard, put dresses on him, wrapped him in blankets, put him in a chair with medicine bottles are around, so when his men came in, they said please don't bother old aunt bessy. one of the major targets were politicians and ministers. and so the minister of the methodist church, reverend fisher, was in his house. the men knew they were in his house. so they decided whatever they were going to do, they were going to kill him. they couldn't find him so they set the house on fire. well, reverend fisher's wife helped him crawl out of the cellar, the basement. she covered him with rugs and furniture while the house was burning and he was saved. so there's some remarkable saves as well.

now, before quanteral's raid, this is kind of hard to do, to transition because it makes sense but it doesn't. a few months before the raid, the legislator in kansas made the decision that the university of kansas would be in lawrence. part of the deal was that they had to come up with $15,000 to the state legislator for that to happen. in order to get the university in their town josia miller bribed the state legislators and gave them each $5 to vote for lawrence. when the vote came he realized he'd missed two. he snuck over -- he didn't have enough to give them each $5, but gave them each $4.

and they voted for lawrence to have the state university. well, of course with the raid coming up with $15,000 was a big deal because every penny they had, every amount of energy they had was going towards rebuilding their town. so they didn't have that. so charles robinson contacted our friend amos lawrence and asked him if he would contribute $15,000 so they could have the university. he had already contributed, oh, gosh, i couldn't keep track. i'm not good at math, but everything i was able to add up, it looks like he was able to give $50,000 to lawrence and kansas. he gave them $10,000 and they were able to come up with the rest of the money to have the university of kansas located in lawrence. now, what's interesting is i've

read several things that said that lawrence, his name was attached to the town but he never came here. well, actually he did. in 1884 amos lawrence, his wife, his daughter and the mayor of boston came to kansas, they had things planned over several weeks for them. but lawrence was a quiet man. he really didn't like the limelight. so after two or three days, he didn't want to be here anymore. he went on the train and went back to boston, but he did visit here. i think this is amazing. with lawrence's money, with the railroad -- there actually were two railroads that came through lawrence shortly after the war. there was a new bridge built across the kansas river. so lawrence actually recovered

very quickly and very successfully with all of these economic features and with the university, and it became a thriving town very quickly after quantrills raid. i think kansas really provides a wonderful opportunity for us to do that. american politicians today talked about voter fraud, voter suppression and so forth, but the territorial election in kansas in 1855, i mean there's no question this was a prime example of voter fraud. i think the most critical piece for a democrat republic to function properly is for the participation of the populous in selecting its representatives. and anything that undermines that process compromises the entire system. so i think that's one lesson that we learned, that blatant voter fraud just does not work.

this past week we came to realize that hatred, bigotry, racism faced by the people of lawrence over 150 years ago has reared its ugly face in shif charlottesville, virginia. i think the people of lawrence and kansas refused to tolerate bigotry and racism in the 1850s and '60s and were willing to go to great lengths to eradicate that. i think that's another lesson we have. that people were willing to literally give their lives to eradicate hatred and bigotry in the 1850s. but i think the most important lesson from this story is that many americans were so passionate about ending slavery, people like amos lawrence, poured a fortune of his own money to ensuring kansas would become a free state. other abolitionists who were willing to immigrate to another

area without any assurance of financial success moved. and to work to preserve a civil union and end the institution of slavery, maybe we can learn from their example and recognize that eradicati eradicating evil benefits all. thank you. [ applause ] i'm very happy to take questions. yes, ma'am? >> you mentioned that guerillas banding together were someone encouraged by the government and i guess paid? >> yes, by the confederates. not by the north but by the south, that's correct. >> oh, by the south. >> yes, by the confederates,

thought by the north. he actually was a captain in the confederate army, theoretically. he was able to -- and actually he was very upset. he thought he was so cool. he traveled to richmond and demanded that he be made a colonel. they began to find out what a -- how bloodthirsty he was, and they didn't give him that title. but he could have had the title of colonel as a guerilla chief thing. so just to keep it straight, the confederates recognized -- i mean in some ways i recognize this as domestic terrorism because it's being sanctioned by the government, being paid by the government, they're recognized by the government. on the north they tried to control the jayhawkers, had some success, but they were not encouraged to go on their own as guerillas.

in fact, they tried to control them with varying degrees of success, mostly unsuccess. yes, sir? let me catch this young lady in the front and then i'll try to repeat the questions. >> i would like to know in your studies the names of james monroe -- >> i don't recall that name, but if you look at inindex of my book, i might have come across it but i don't recall. sorry. i'm sorry, yes, i did remember that. was it the first colored regiment? yes, i'm sorry, i can't remember names. fantastic.

you hear that? so the leader of the first kansas infantry regiment colored at fort scott was her great-uncle, correct? wonderful. >> dr. sutton, i'm particularly interested in your history with regard to the confederate monuments. >> i'm sorry, to laugh but we were just talking before. i said i bet the fist question i get -- yes, it took three. >> so particularly is it your viewpoint that we should leave those up as a reminder of our past, or should they be removed? and if they should be removed, what is the criteria for deciding which of our monuments and statues should be removed? >> that's a good question, but it's supposed to be yes or no,

though. no, i have a -- to me it's a complicated issue. and i've been thinking about it actually for quite a while. and i have been thinking of it in the context of the confederate flag. so the confederate battle flag, you know the st. andrews cross, the battle flag, to me it has no place at all in our country. i don't care what anyone says, and the reason is it essentially disappeared from the public entirely until a civil rights movement. and the confederate battle flag became the symbol of the anti-civil rights movement. and so it should be done away with, and that's my view about that. but about confederate monuments, my personal view is that they should not be taken down. they're part of our culture. like it or not they're part of our culture. but i would like to see is what

richmond proposed early on. i think they've changed from this. but to leave the monuments in place and put interpretive markers there to interpret what happened. we did that in the park service. there was a monument to hayward shepherd. he was a free black man, the first person killed in john brown's raid. and the daughter's of the confederacy put a monument up to hayward shepherd, said, you know, he was a nice guy, essentially an uncle tom, right? and so the park didn't know what to do with this, so for a while they built a wooden box to put over this monument, so the sons and daughters of confederacy were upset because they put a wooden box around it. the naacp were upset. eventually what they did was to take the box off and put an interpretive mark. and that seemed to work well. so i think for the most part that's what i would do with confederate monuments.

now, there are exceptions. and i think the exceptions are very important. i just saw the other day that lexington, kentucky, has confederate monuments. but they are on the sight of a former slave market. and they did it for a reason. there's good reason why they did that, not a good reason, but the reason they did that. so i think that should be remove. i think that should be taken away from a slave market, because i think that is now sacred ground that does not deserve to have a confederate monument. so that should be taken away. and there are some particularly in my mind egregious individuals that should not have monuments. ask i would just as soon see them gone completely. like nathan bedford forest. he murdered hundreds of african-american soldiers who had surrendered at fort pillow, and then he became the founding member of the ku klux klan.

from what i understand, i don't know this for a fact but i've heard it from several people, there are more monuments to nathan bedford in tennessee than all of the three presidents cfrm tennessee combined. what's also interesting is robert e. lee said he didn't want any monuments. he didn't think it was appropriate to build monuments after the civil war. so that's what he said. it's complicated, i got to tell you my views are sort of evolving. i hope others' are too. so that's my take on that. yes, sir? >> you didn't mention john brown very much. was he a help or what did he do specifically to help kansas? >> he didn't do much to help kansas, to be honest. >> i didn't think so. >> many think he was a real development to kansas.

by killing the pro-slavery people he started bleeding kansas. that was the trigger that started bleeding kansas. he came back later and actually worked with this -- my buddy dr. john doy, doctor in quotes, john doy, to go steal slaves in missouri. in my mind he was more of a development than he was a help. but what's interesting is that he had an interesting relationship with amos lawrence. he had sold wool to amos lawrence years before. i don't remember exactly when, but years before this whole story of kansas. and then when he went to kansas, he went to see his buddy amos lawrence, who essentially wrote a letter of introduction to him. and then he came back again not long before he went to harpers ferry and met with lawrence

again and asked lawrence to help him with this project. and lawrence, of course, refused. and he said, you know, i've given a lot of money to kansas to this issue already, which he had. but when john brown asked him if he would take care of his family if anything happened to him, lawrence agreed to do that. and he did. he actually took care of his family when john brown -- and he wrote a letter to the governor of virginia hoping that they would give him a fair trail, which they did. so that was -- there's more connections. but it doesn't really -- there's not a whole lot that fits with the story because he triggered things but then kind of left. >> the good people of kansas find that the civil war started there and i think they kind of noted mr. brown as a hero, and i've always kind of disagreed with that just a little bit.

>> you know what, there's so much debate over john brown. was he completely insane or was he just a zealot. i don't know. i've tried to stay out of that debate. was he insane or was he zealot, i don't know. i have no idea. anyone else? yes, sir? >> you were asked about the confederacy, the quantrill trail -- >> yes, part of the deal with the partisan ranger act is that they were supposed to -- if they were requested by the confederate commanders to join up, that was supposed to be their role. they could call on them. and so theoretically what they were supposed to do was to like be scouts, cover, retreats, that sort of thing.

so they were supposed to be available when called upon. and sometimes i think in quantrill, they were twice called upon. but bloody anderson, he kind of went his own way. i read about him and i just go my goodness gracious. in my book i have a picture of him. he looks like a swashbuckling hero, but i have another picture of him and he's dead. anything else? yes, ma'am? >> in quantrill, you didn't address what his profession was at one point? >> i could go on forever about quantrill. he was a schoolteacher. he was a schoolteacher, apparently a real smart guy. and what's interesting is later -- later after he's dead, there's all kinds of things. people said he was a real

scoundrel. people who actually knew him said, no, he was very studious. you would never in a million years guess what he would have been like later. well, when he was a teenager he actually taught school. went to indiana and illinois to teach school. his father died when he was young so he was sort of the breadwinner for the family. he was from ohio originally, so he went back to his home in ohio and went to kansas with a group of folks from his town. they settled there. the folks from this group, from the town is called dover canal, i think was the name of the town. notice things are missing. they eventually caught him red-handed stealing things from this group. they told him to leave. he did leave. but he taught school in kansas also. and then he went west, went to

pike's peak. he actually came back to lawrence. he lived in lawrence for a while under the name of william clark, i think. i can't remember names, so william clarke. and that's when he really turned into what he became later because he became a horse thief. he didn't really make a lot of money stealing horses. he also was a slave stealer. what he would do was he would go to missouri and steal slaves and come back and then take the slaves back to missouri to get the reward for capturing the slaves. at one point he and five went on a mission to capture slaves at a big plantation. when they arrived he said i'm going to go scout out situation so we can go do our deal tonight.

so what he did was went and found the son of the slave owner, said this is what's going to happen tonight, these five are going to attack. why don't you get someone to counter attack. they did, so he stayed out of the picture. they shot -- they killed one quaker, two of them escaped back to lawrence. two of them were injured, hid out. he went out with the son of the slave owner, shot the two quakers who had left and that really was sort of the turning point in his life. he then joined the confederate army, so you get the sense of he wasn't really a nice guy. he really wasn't. he -- after the raid in lawrence, he and his band went down to i think to the texas, arkansas area.

the confederate army was really getting kind of disgusted with the these guerillas. they didn't really like them very much. so they reorganized and quantrill was sort of voted out as the leader. he was underground for a while, and then he took his band to kentucky. he had them dress in union uniform, said they were part of the fifth missouri cavalry. well, they got onto him very quickly and he was shot. and what's interesting is he was shot after the war was over. she was shot in the back. he lingered for a couple of days. he became a -- the report is that he became a very devout catholic just before he died. he was buried, and then it really gets bizarre. because he was buried in lexington, kentucky. but a friend of his took some of the bones to dover where he was

from. someone kept his head, and then about 15 years ago the sons of confederate veterans actually took some of the bones and buried them in missouri. so if you want to try to find everything that belongs to william clarke quantrill, be my guest. but as far as i can tell, he was a pretty nasty person. anything else? [ applause ] friday night american history tv is in prime time with c-span's cities tour focusing on religion. first we'll take you to the oldest baptist church congregation in the united states founded by roger williams in providence, rhode island. the tour also includes a visit to a