>> so the question is how big can the u.s. national debt get? yeah. of course, nobody knows. and debt optimists will point to places like great britain, which hit 250% of its gdp. the british had something akin to our fiscal constitution. they held the line on deficits and the debt to gdp ratio came down considerably during that 100 years.

that is how they were able to run it up again during world war i and world war ii. it is not just the size of it. are there breaks in place that can keep us from sliding more and more? and as bill white writes, and i rely on him because he is a politician and he studied the current environment in details. if he is right, the fiscal constitution is dead, and there is no sign of it being revived. this was things like bush ii funding the iraq war with a series of appropriations. so, rather than percentage, i am more concerned, can we stop it? when will we do so?

and i don't see a stop in sight. both parties are parties of spending and borrowing. it is difficult to see what is going to break. break.efore a thank you. [applause] madman acrossm the water asking about an issue that still resounds today. his question is about how many will or father by u.s. gis in vietnam, how were they treated 45 years after the u.s. departure? featured in our program. join the conversation on facebook and on twitter

2cspanhistory. staff city to her recently visited many sites showcasing its history. than 16,000 union and confederate troops thought the battle of wilson's creek your springfield, which ended in a confederate victory. learn more about springfield all weekend here on american history tv. >> 1861, the first civil war batter -- battle west of the mississippi river was spot right just 10 miles , from springfield, missouri. right now hear more about the

battle. >> august 10, 1861. the first civil war battle west of the mississippi was fought right after bull run in virginia. a lot of people don't realize the civil war takes place west of the mississippi. the missouri is very instrumental in the civil war. we are located right in the we are located right in the middle. we had transportation corridors with the mississippi and missouri rivers, as well as the railroads. president lincoln said we have to retain missouri and kentucky. he wanted to do his best to keep them in the union because of the supplies and men and material they can provide to the union army. missouri does provide troops and material for both sides during the civil war. missouri was a difficult to understand state at the time. we just started at wilson's creek. we have a five mile tour road that gives you an easy drive through the battlefield. there are eight stops along the way. it is up to you to do whatever you want to do. how much time you want to spend is the key to self-guided.

you can spend all day or just drive through and look at the deer. we have people who do that as well. we are just beginning on the tour road. it makes it easy to point people in the right direction. you will notice on the road we have a lane on the right-hand side for pedestrians, joggers and bicyclists. we have a lot of recreational use. locals who come out and use the tour road for exercise. we sell a park specific pass that gets you entrance to the park for a year, for a one-time fee. folks use that repeatedly. wilson's creek is the whole reason the battle takes place here. there is a water source. you know as well as i do you can go longer without food and you can without water.

when you have that many men, the southern forces needed water sources for the men and the animals as well. wilson's creek and many small streams in this area. this particular area is called oak hills. this is the beginnings of bloody hill on my right. this is where he makes his stand. lyon knows what he's doing when he comes up in springfield. he takes the high ground. this is the highest point out here. it is easier to defend yourself if you're shooting downhill as opposed to shooting uphill. he knew what he was doing with the high ground. we are on what becomes known as bloody hill. locals call it the oak hill, because at the time it was an oak savanna. they have both trees interspersed with lots of open prairie grass. when lyon moves up from springfield, he maneuvers to

take the high ground. he takes the high ground. we're standing on the union line, maybe further down the not far. he has artillery on either end and artillery in the middle to anchor his line. lyon's artillery commander is a man named james cotton. he was an instructor in little rock, arkansas at the little rock arsenal. when arkansas secedes, cotton remains loyal to the union and comes back up this direction where he's assigned to lyon's staff. an artillery battery is raised at a little rock, arkansas. little rock is located in polaski county. the polaski county light artillery fights at wilson's creek, in the fight against

cotton. you have teacher fighting against student at this battle. cotton comes out victorious in the battle. lyon deploys his artillery very, very well in anchoring both sides of his line. so, the union army has this line. the southerners attack of bloody hill one arm at a time. lyon is able to move his forces to meet the onslaught as the southerners attack. by the time they attack a third time, lyon has been killed. he was killed around 9:30 in the morning. the southerners find there is nobody up there. the decision was made after lyon was killed. union forces had been out here since early morning, fighting for about six hours. they are low on ammunition. it is hot in missouri, a record heatwave. the commanding officer is dead.

command is given to sturgis, the highest ranking officer who has not been wounded. he retreats back to springfield. when the southerners regroup and come back bloody hill, there is no one here for them to fight. there are three separate charges that come up bloody hill, two of which lyon is able to pulse. he is wounded several times before he is shot through the heart. a lot of men fight here and they also fight in march of 1862. what we are driving down is the wire road, the telegraph road. i call it the i-44 of the 1860's. all traffic is up and down this road. they could end up at fort smith,

arkansas, and eventually on to california. you can pull up right here and we can get out. we can just park right here. we are standing on the porch of the john ray house. john ray and his wife roxanna moved here at the time of the battle, august 10, 1861. john built this house. it is completed in 1852. this is not your typical farmstead. he has over 400 acres, a couple of orchards. he is pretty well-to-do. plus, he is the mailman, the postmaster for this community. he is paid by the federal government. but he has slaves. it's that weird position of missourians. missouri is a slave state yet some still are in support of the

federal government. john ray sits on his porch and can see the battle unfold in front of him. bloody hill is about one mile from me, from the porch of the ray house. that nice bare spot on the hill. a mile as the crow flies. there was less vegetation at the time. large trees grow by the river and up by the house itself. the southerners have camped all around his house, in the valley. the union army comes out from springfield 10 miles away. they see the southerners camped around the house and open up artillery fire on the house. they actually take out the coop in the back of the house. at that point a yellow flag is

raised, the symbol of a hospital. in my opinion that is why the house survived the battle. the wounded and dying are brought here almost immediately as the action starts at wilson's creek. john ray and roxanna -- and they have nine children living your the time. it is one of those modern families or what we would consider a modern family. he comes from the south. he is a widower. when she gets here, roxanna is married to another man named william steele. william steele dies. when roxana married william

steele, her parents gave her slaves as a winning present. one is sold before the war because of being unruly. at the time of the battle, her four children lived here with the raise -- ray's. slavery in missouri is different than in the deep south. there is not thousands of slaves here. there is not an overseer. her children will work side-by-side with roxanne in the kitchen, the fields, wherever they are needed. after the war, she chooses to stay with the family. she eventually moves into springfield where she marries. when she dies, she is buried in springfield. when the general is on bloody hill, when he is killed, the first union general killed in the civil war, his body is placed under a tree and covered up, eventually put in a lag in -- put in a wagon to take back to springfield where they will take the wounded. there are so many wounded from this battle. his body is left on the field.

the confederates charge back up bloody hill to realize there is no one there to engage. the southerners take care of the dying and wounded. they find his body and bring it here, where he is given a position of honor. everyone recognizes why. it is no secret who he is. he is placed upon the family bed. this is the bed his body was placed upon. in the visitor center, we have what you and i would call a bedspread or coverlet that roxana gave to cover his body. a doctor from springfield, there is no medical core yet, comes out to care for the wounded. they examined the body and confirms his death. they sent a message into

springfield for the troops to come pick up lyon's body, which they do. missouri ranks third with the number of battles fought within her borders. a field survey, over 40 of those, there are more than that. i could not give you a specific number as far as battles in missouri. over 400, probably. these are small actions in comparison to gettysburg. i don't know about you, but if a bullet was -- at the bulletin whizzes by my head, it is significant. warfare continues through

missouri. 1854 with a kansas-nebraska act, all the way through the civil war and pass that with people who do not want to give that up. who are still stuck in their ways, so to speak. i do not want to reconcile. -- who do not want to reconcile. i have been through a lot of battlefields over the years. both run by the national park service and by state parks and this private battlefield that someone is preserving in their backyard. i think wilson's creek is not the best -- is the best in my opinion. it is right up there. we have the "three-legged stool." we have the field, we have 80% of the battlefield itself. you can read all about it in the official records all you want to.

there is nothing like learning from walking on the fields. we have that. we have a research library which you guys have seen. with one of the largest collections of civil war materials in the park service. we have the record in -- written records. then you have the museum collection, the artifacts that to these men actually used some of the swords, the guns, the clothing they wore. it tells the whole story. you get that three-legged stool where everything is told. it makes it complete. wilson's creek is unique in that regard, in my opinion. >> learn more at www.c-span.org/ citiestour. watching american history tv on c-span3, it all weekend, every weekend. coming up monday morning, alex bolton and jason deck discuss the week ahead in washington. and, new limits to state and local deductions from federal income taxes. be sure to watch washington

journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern monday morning. join the discussion. nine, we are a location that bell labs in new jersey for the first of a two-part interview series. the premier one of communications research facilities in the world providing work in radio astronomy, lasers, and information theory. what's new in communications technology and research. >> represent you a ton of data but not necessarily knowledge. in the next era, we will connect you,thing, or environment, infrastructure, buildings, bridges, cities, so we actually see what is going on, and then automate that. your energy will be automatically managed for you.

and yet the cloud has to move into the network to make that work. the network will become down again and the devices will be everywhere, on you, it in you, car. that's when we will see this increase in productivity. eastern on 8:00 c-span2. >> many believe the wild west begin right here in springfield, missouri, when james butler hickok, better known as well bill, shot and killed a man. greene county archives and look at documents related to the case. >> he was somewhat of a dandy. he was known as the proverbial but still hadman

the hint of being a criminal which is a predominant theme. had it not been for one such publication, harper's monthly magazine, nobody would have known who wild bill was and nobody would have cared who wild bill was. announcer: two months after the conclusion of the civil war, in july 1865, james butler hickok, unionists, shot and killed davis touched, a former confederate soldier. the shooting was written about in harper's monthly magazine, and painted hickok as a romantic figure of the american wild west. while in springfield, we visited the greene county archives and looked at court documents from the trial. >> during the war, was the only county in southwest missouri that -- whose population went up. that has to do with the soldiers who were here as well as the refugees that were coming in from all of southwest missouri, indian territory, arkansas, southern kansas.

prior to the outbreak of the war, there were a couple thousand people. it was the biggest -- it was the only urban center in southwest missouri. by the end of the war, there were probably 10,000 people in springfield. what makes that so unique is if you go, especially a county to the west, some of those counties depopulated anywhere between 60% and 90% during the war. lacking weather conditions, people were starving, it was not a pleasant place to be. after the war, springfield is still under military occupation. there is still a military court in addition to the civilians circuit court.

there are a lot of ex-confederates here in addition to ex-union soldiers. there is also a lot of refugees of both sides. former unionists, former confederate refugees. it was still -- the war had technically ended, the surrender had occurred, there were still -- was still wild stuff going on. hickok and tut were known to be friend. -- friends. something went wrong. there are various versions of that story. none of which we can prove. one was that tut was the better gambler. there was one story where tut was going around and convincing people to up the stakes. as the story goes, hickok lot -- hickok lost and tut ended up with a watch that hickok prized. it was a gold watch. the deal was that hickok approached tut and said do not wear that in public. don't let anyone know you won my watch.

he was very concerned with his appearance. tut jokingly said, i am going to wear it. this is my watch, now. over the course of a couple of days, things got heated. words were exchanged. hickok laid down the ultimately -- ultimatum and said, i do not want to see you anyway public with my watch on. he went and used it on the public square in the southeast corner and waited for tut to come out. tut came walking up, hickok drew an shot tut and shot him in the chest. under the missouri constitution at that time, and because we were still technically under military will -- rule, you had to take any -- you had to take the oath of allegiance. you signed a document, raise

your hand, and gave an oath to the appropriate military personnel that you were loyal to the union and loyal to the state of missouri. in some cases, this is how prisoners were released, by taking the oath. unless you are -- those who were exempt were officers. union, federal sojourn -- soldiers. anybody else that was not had to take this oath of loyalty. a lot of confederates had to take it. you had to take it in order to preach a sermon at a church. you had to do it -- take it in order to teach other school.

a lot of former confederates refused to take the oath. they refuse to do it out of personal pride, personal conviction. if you had not taken the oath, you were completely disenfranchised. you cannot vote, you couldn't teach school, couldn't sell liquor, couldn't serve on a jury, you had no rights basically. you were still considered a personal pride, personal rebel and rebellion. what happened is that tut, and the x confederates, and hickok is an ex federal, as they are getting the trial together, they could not find any x confederates who would taken the oath. everyone that sat on the jury were former unionists. the judge was a former unionists. another well-known attorney later went on -- he was the ambassador to siam in the 1890's. within 48 hours, and indictment is filed. a warrant is issued for his arrest. this is the original indictment. dozens and dozens and dozens of subpoenas were issued. to come in -- to give testimony for the trial and some of these represent testimonies.

it happened really quick and they acquitted him of manslaughter. was the trial fair? who is to say. at the time, what happened is exactly what happened. everyone else was disenfranchised. at least for that generation, hickok was the back of everyone's mind. now it is kind of a novelty. the first shootout happened here. what is not understood is that it was not necessarily a quick draw. bank, bank, shoot them up. this was a feud between two members of different armies, two

members of a different side of a war that happen to play out when and where it did. if it would not have been for this issue in harper's weekly, no one would have known. announcer: our media come cable partners worked with c-span's a cities tour staff when we travel to springfield, missouri. you're watching american history weekend,eekend, every on c-span3. >> up next, columbia law school down at the new york historical society for conversation about presidential work hours and how they have evolved over time. this is an hour. >> if you are not a lawyer, which most of us are not, reading the columbia law review does not get you excited, with all due respects to the professors here.