crucible of the presidency. we will bring this to a close. thank you very much, everyone. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. our comcast cable partners worked with c-span cities to her staff when we traveled to las cruces, new mexico. the city is located 225 miles south of albuquerque, 275 miles east of tucson and 50 miles north of el paso, texas. learn more about las cruces all weekend, here on american history tv. fort selden was established

in may 1865. it was to protect the citizens of the valley and travelers on the trade route,? -- the trade route, which was comingcally the real from santa fe and back. the primary defense was against apache raters more than anyone else. and the location was chosen because this has been a spot where there was easy access to and itnd firewood, provides a very easy view of all the surrounding area. comingcan see enemies you can see trade caravans coming, and the soldiers here provided escort services. they would travel with people

up the camino,, so that was the general purpose. the other purpose was for people passing through a shortcut through the desert. they couldspot where rest, where they could find water, there was a hospital here. that is why it was located here and that is the purpose it served. periods ofs two occupation, 1865-1868 is the first. they start the process of disassembling it. they take the wood beams off, they take the windows and doors, and they remove them so they can use them in other locations. 1881, they decided to --

and decided to reoccupy it it is occupied for a decade. by 1891 the indian wars are over and there really isn't any need manneds location to be by a military force anymore. the communities in the area have grown, it is just a whole different situation by the beginning of the 1890's. so the fort was abandoned again, basically taken apart. had it not been taken apart and had they left the roofs on the buildings and the doorframes and the windows, those protect the integrity of the building and it probably wouldn't be in the precarious shape that it is in. but that was sort of a standard thing. you had doors and windows and beams that were cut, and they were just repurposed. so that is what happened. and it was just no longer needed anymore.

let's go into the fort proper. one of the big challenges here is, as you will see as we go through the ruins, is the erosion of the adobe walls. adobe is manufactured , clay, sand,er and some matter like strong in order to bind it. but here, -- matter like straw in order to bind it but here, the adobe was only made of water and clay, so they were much more susceptible to collapse. one interesting thing about this fort was that although you see it also has

preserved to the footprint of the fort itself. most other 19th century forts that are made of a dobie -- southwest, they are gone except for the footprint on the ground. so you can really get an idea of what this area was like. this is also the only part of ,he fort that was two stories and this building right here, that is made of stone, you might wonder, why would there be a dobee building in an a fort? well, this was the jail, and if and youade out of adobe had some sort of instrument like a spoon or a fork, you could dig

yourself out of jail. but if the jail was made of stone, you would stay put. this looks like it had two rooms, to sell areas. it was also a second story here and the was a courtroom in the second story. one thing we know about the soldiers who served here is that they work frequently in trouble. a nearby community, they liked to visit the women in the community, they got drunk, probably in and so an average month there might have been seven or eight soldiers who had run afoul of some sort of rule, and they might end up in this probably pretty secure jail. this is what is called the sally port, and this is the formal entrance into the fort. so anyone who had business with and of course the

soldiers when they were coming and going would typically use this area. again, this is the only area that was two stories. [footsteps] this building that you don't see was the post commissary and the storeroom. this was actually a very significant place. the commissary would take care of all the sorts of needs of the that the military was providing for them, acyclic. -- for them, basically. unfortunately, this building is completely gone. there are plans to put up at least some walls that would show

at the foot prints. i think you could get the appreciation. i think from this vantage point you can also see, i was talking about how you can see so far from this spot, as opposed to a littlewere which is bit lower, and you can see all the way around in really, 360 degrees. so if someone were coming that would pose a threat, or if there was a trade caravans coming, you can see it. easily. the military had a system where they used what are called helio graphs, basically system of using mirrors and refracting light to signal. so they could put a person on top of that mountain and that person could observe everyone coming, and the information could be transmitted down here. there was a whole system. this fort was part of a system of forts through southern new

mexico. this building here was where noncommissioned officers stayed. this would have been sergeants and corporals, and they would have been responsible for the crammed into be this space over here. so this is the barracks for the .nlisted men 1865,rt was started in and its first life was 13 years, 1865 to 1878. there were two companies here. a cavalry company, and an infantry company. there was room for 75 men in each barracks, so very tightly packed. they slept in bunk beds.

the army had a standard for the amount of air that was supposed to circulate. this barracks did not meet that standard. if i had to guess, i would say it is in the mid to upper 90's right now and we are only in june. these men were wearing heavy, wool uniforms. i imagine it would have been brutal to have been stationed here. the heat would have been overwhelming. thatfort was not a fort engaged in a lot of battles with native americans. were, i believe, only three fatalities of people serving here that died in any sort of engagement. , int was probably also addition to being hot and uncomfortable, it was probably also pretty boring.

of maintenance work, constantly on it, and they did patrol work. one of the really significant things that this fort did was provide safe travel for people traveling on the camino real, thethe camino real becomes chihuahua trail and goes all the chihuahua. wh right now i am standing on a real, and itamino says 283 miles to santa fe. so as you stand here, you can imagine literally thousands of religion,eas,

everything that came from the spanish world into this country came along this road. people who live in new mexico and have been here it is sortnerations, of fascinating, they can stand on this ground where their ancestors walked. so this is a pretty important and in termstory, of the sweep of history, this location is probably more significant for its role in the camino real. at some point in the history of trying to preserve this place, there was an attempt to say who was really, truly famous that was here?

oftentimes, that is used as some sort of the rationale. and it turns out that in his memoirs, general douglas macarthur mentions that when he arthurng, his father, macarthur was here. and this building here is where the mac arthur's lived. 1883, andin december macarthur had been born in january 1880. he says in his memoirs that he learned to shoot and to ride while he was here, but it seems rather unlikely. he would have been three years old when he came, and five or

six years old when he left. it seems rather unlikely he could have hefted a military weapon, or that he would have been allowed to ride a horse. maybe he wrote with his dad or his brother, but at any rate there has been an attempt to point out that macarthur was here, and he probably was the most famous man that was here, as a very young lad for a brief amount of time. the other big story associated withthis fort, and indeed the 19th century forts in new mexico in general, is the store of the buffalo -- is the story of the buffalo soldiers, of course. there hadcivil war,

been black soldiers who fought for the north but after the civil war, a decision was made whoorm some black units anded under white officers, they were sent to the west, many of them. so the first group that came came in 1866, just after was established, it was the 125th infantry. they were called buffalo soldiers because the kiowa plains whothe great first encountered them, because they had curly hair and because of their bravery and their dark complexion and their fierceness, they referred to them as buffalo

.oldiers and theyen liked it, referred to themselves that way as well. there were a number of different units. the 125th over a little bit with another group of infantry, the 38th. probably the most famous buffalo soldiers were in the ninth calvary and the 10th cavalry. of those buffalo soldiers, there , in encounters in the southwest were awarded the congressional medal of honor. those individuals didn't serve here but were part of the buffalo soldiers group, so that is one of the really important forts. of these western one of the things the new mexico historic sites program always

says is, it is where history happened. and i think people who come here can have a guided tour, a docent can tell them about what the experience was like, and it is really almost unique among these western forts. because this when is still here, to some extent, where as many of them are not -- whereas many of them are not. our cities to her staff traveled to las cruces, new mexico to learn about its rich history. learn about las cruces and other stops on our tour on c-span.org/citiestour. >> next on "history bookshelf" james david robenalt talks about his book "the harding love affair: love and espionage during the great war." he recounts the political and

personal lives of and senator harding focusing on journal entries and 800 pages of love letters written from 19 oh and 1917 between harding and kerry phillips. a woman who would be investigated for her friendship with alleged german spies. joseph bethorded at booksellers in cleveland in 2009. it is about an hour. first question for all of you, does anybody have a run on them? you got to ask that these days. coming, thanks to joseph f for doing this. i have some photographs to show you to go through this tour eight. it is one of the most fascinating stories of american history that has not been told. i think you will find this very interesting. let me start as i did up