>> you can be featured in our next live program. join the conversation on facebook at face book.com/c-spanhistory. and on twitter @c-spanhistory. >> our communications cable partners work with c-span city tour staff when we travel to fayetteville, arkansas, home too sage and chairee -- to owes age and cherokee indians. learn more about fayetteville this weekend on american history tv. >> so this is a house that belonged to a family who lived in fayetteville, arkansas, in the 1850's and 1860's. they were here during the civil war and they experienced the war and they loved fayetteville and then when the war came, it just changed everything. >> we're at headquarters house in fayetteville, arkansas. headquarters house is the home of the washington county

historical society. the washington county historical society purchased the house in 1967 from paris green. the house is built in 1853 by jonas tebbetts who was from new hampshire but came to arkansas in 1838 to study law in van buren. and once he passed the bar and was traveling the law circuit, he came up into fayetteville and he happened to meet matilda winlock so he and matilda got married in 1847. in february of 1862, the confederates were being driven out of missouri and down here into arkansas. and as they were being driven down here in arkansas, they came through the town of fayetteville and decided to burn all the confederate stores and they threw open like where all the food was held and where the ammo was held and things like that and basically the soldiers just sort of ransacked the towns and said that some of the citizens participated in

this ransacking, also, but it was a pretty dark time for the citizens of fayetteville. and headquarters house was directly threatened when across the veet the fayetteville female institute had been used as an arsenal for the confederate army so they decided to set fire to it. now, the powder and shells and things had been removed but there were still faulty shells. so once the building caught fire, the shells started to explode, endangering this house but they were able to save it. this is a picture of arkansas college and the tebbetts house. the president of arkansas college lived across the street and to the other side of him was arkansas college. arkansas college was not burned in the initial firing of fayetteville but when the confederates were on their way to pea ridge in early march of 1862 they did burn arkansas college. jonas tebbetts was a union man as i said before and when alexander asbaugh came to

fayetteville, he came and proclaimed he was going to liberate fayetteville for the union and all the union sympathizers could come out and he'd protect them and he wanted a union flag to put up on the town square. some people knew that jonas had a flag of the united states of america. they sent asbaugh to the house here, to the tebbetts home and jonas gave him a flag and he put it up on the town square. jonas also invited the general in to have dinner at his house and to make this house his headquarters, thinking general asbaugh would be here for a while. the general did come to the house, dined with the tebbetts and three days later he was called back up north, leaving the town again open to which ever army came through. the next army that came through was the southern army and

general ben mccole you can from texas sent his -- ben mcculluck sent him to the door and knocked and said tebbetts was under arrest for being a traiter to the united states of america and he was taken to fort smith where he would be tried and hung as a trader for having a union flag and for supposedly not accepting confederate money, for allowing union general into his house. many people wanted to help jonas tebbetts as much as they could. members of the confederate army even and they were kind of working with the union army to try to get him released. there was a union jailer who sent a letter to matilda tebbetts saying that he would do everything he could to help jonas and to make his stay comfortable. he was sure everything would turn out all right but while jonas was in fort smith in

jail, the soldier would help to watch out for him. matilda was allowed to send one of their slaves to fort smith to kind of tend to jonas' needs as he was a gentleman. he was allowed to have a slave with him. matilda sent some messages through the slave and then the slave also was allowed just by his status to stand around and absorb information he could pass on to jonas. and in the meantime, general ben mccullock was called to the battle of pea ridge and in that battle he was killed by a union sharpshooter. because of this, jonas was exonerated, the charges were dropped and he was allowed to come back home. he came back to the house and not long after that, not long after he got back, a neighbor me and told matilda, ms. tebbetts, there's a group of

men who are confederate sympathizers who are going to finish the job ben mccullock could not finish. matilda left the parlor where she was entertaining this neighbor and went and talked to jonas and jonas came in and said hello to the neighbor, walked down -- the stories we have, he walked down the front walk and said, you know, kind of waved a flower goodbye to matilda and got on his horse and quietly rode out of town, when he got to the union lines or just past the confederate lines, he spurred his horse on and headed up to the union line. once he was there, he shared information about what he knew about the area and the people in the area and never lived in this house again. the information we have is from the oldest daughter's journal which was actually her memories she wrote when she was in her late 80's, 90 years old. but what she said was like

while jonas was in prison in fort smith, the confederate soldiers came and demanded the drapes and carpets to be used as blankets and saddle blankets and instead of just giving them to them, matilda had the slaves take them down, beat out the dirt and fold them nicely and give them to the army. so matilda hid any hard feelings that she had. she did wear several pieces of gold coins sewed into her under garments just in case the family had to flee in the middle of the night. but she was gracious in all that she did. and then when jonas had left after he was exonerated and he left the state, matilda was here by herself with the children and eventually the union army came back in. the union army kind of watched

over matilda and when they'd be pulling out again, they told her, they said we're leaving and you should go with us. and so she packed up what she could thinking, you know, she -- she was leashing the next day but just so happened jonas came in with a message to deliver to the general here, or the officer in charge, and he was able to leave with his amily. the family left in 1862 and took what they could and left and they went and found a home in missouri and then went and found a home -- actually, they traveled through the ismus of panama to california looking for a home. while they were there, abraham lincoln was assassinated, they decided they didn't -- california was not the place for them, they came back, tried

once to come back after the war to fayetteville and it was just too changed. the people were changed, living was hard. this had been like a cultural center almost on the edge of the united states of america just before you go into indian and wild west materiality. and it wasn't that anymore. they didn't have good feelings to stay in fayetteville. so they went and settled in kentucky and never lived here. jonas did help some of the onfederates. he had some communication with the people but not living here. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to fayetteville, arkansas, to learn about its rich history. learn more about fayetteville d other stops in our tour at

c-span.org/cities tour. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on -span 3. in 1979 c pan was created as a american service by the television countries and brought to you today by your cable and satellite divider. this weekend on american history tv from the national constitution center in philadelphia, a discussion on the value of two lesser known documents from the founding eura. the documents are 1787 letter by anti-federal list mercy ottis warren and a 1790 report on public credit by alexander hamilton. ere's a preview. >> i just wanted to say, it's an extraordinary letter for a lot of reasons. one, i think it very succinctly

explains where we are in late september of 1787 and just from a teaching standpoint, it's ways very useful to have a fairly short document to demonstrate these points. we can't go without underscoring -- these are two women in september of 1787, both of whom correspond with and provided advice to the major figures of the day. they're both published authors in their own name. one publishes a three volume history of the american revolution. i think it's actually the first published three volume history and also published is an eight volume history of england. and they are political thinkers and they are political actors and interestingly, they are talking about a document that doesn't really consider them, right? this is extraordinary. and these are -- they're not castle names like you said,

carol, and they ought to be. and i think it's part of the reason why we selected this. but also to say that she talks to people who have political disagreements from her own. >> watch the entire program sunday at 4:30 p.m. eastern. american history tv. nly on c-span 3. >> i'm very pleased you could all be here today. i know how busy you've been with events leading up to tuesday's election and i want to congratulate all of you in the house of representatives who just have been re-elected. this bill, the immigration reform and control act of 1986 that i'll sign in a few minutes is the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws since 1952. it's the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings in the last three congresses.