i believe that's it. >> thank you very, very much. [applause] robert: thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp.2019] >> he'll be signing the book in the hall. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: you are watching american history tv, only on c-span 3. the effects of the american civil war were far-reaching.

ia was away visal from the conflict, but tensions were high. ommen shares a piece of visalia's history. erry: this town was so hostile, that it was almost like we fought the civil war on the streets of visalia. when visalia was founded in 1852, the town was attracting a lot of settlers. many of the settlers came from southern states. they brought their belief system with them in most cases. early on in visalia's history, a number of the settlers were supportive of states rights and slavery because of where they came from.

there was obviously a conflict. california was a free state. visalia had split loyalties. some were union supporters, some were southern sympathizers. in the middle of basically nowhere. we are about 200 miles north of los angeles. 200 miles south of sacramento. we were in the middle of what i would consider the frontier of california. that became important. a number of people used our area as hideouts, southern sympathizing gangs, and groups

ps east of town and mountains east of town as hideouts in their travels. we were pretty wide open for some problems with conflict dealing with especially the civil war. at the same time, we had some native american issues. we were occupying lands that the native americans occupied. as a result, there were some hard feelings and some problems. now let's jump forward to 1860. is we haveve here high emotions on both sides. we have the southern sympathizers being terribly emotional about their side. and of course, the union folks believe strongly in what president lincoln was doing.

but for the most part we had a , terribly divided town. in those days, the newspapers, and we had two newspapers in 1860. one was the delta newspaper, one was the son. often times, newspapers picked political sides in those early years. and the delta tended to support the southern cause. and the sun supported the northern cause. and so the problem was that both , sides, editorially, attacked each other on a regular basis. john shannon ran the delta newspaper. william governor morris was a contributor to the sun newspaper. those two had a standing

feud going on editorially. in fact, a humorous story, the sun had a motto. "it shines for all," that was the newspaper motto. shannon wrote in his newspaper a criticism of that, "shines for in like mannered as decayed fish in a dark night. it shines and stinks and shines to stink again." in november of 1860, the 2 men confronted each other. both of them were armed. both of them were very upset with each other. and john shannon was killed by william governor morris right on the streets of visalia. so i think that was probably in my mind the first battle in

visalia in the civil war. later the same year, another newspaper came to be. the delta was there, the sun was there. now we have the equal rights expositors. another newspaper supporting the south. and that they were so critical of the north, abraham lincoln and his administration banned the equal rights expositors from the u.s. mail. which basically meant the paper could only be distributed within the town of visalia and could not leave on the stage delivering u.s. mail. they wanted to isolate the problem, so they banned the paper. but it continued to lambaste the union side.

one year later in 1863, it was destroyed by an angry mob of visalia. ns. they went to the newspaper, threw the equipment in the streets, and that was the end of equal rights expositors. just prior to that, the town had received such bad press and publicity that loyal union folk decided to tell the u.s. government, "you have to do something about this town. our town is going over to the other side. you better deal with it before it gets even more out of hand." and so in 1862, a couple dozen union troopers from camp independence crossed the sierra

and marched into visalia. the union folks supporters celebrated. the southern sympathetic folks were angry at that move. eventually, the soldiers created one of the few civil war posts created in california. it was set up right here in visalia. at one point, there were several hundred troopers stationed here. in a sense it was martial law, because they were right on the edge of town but when they were off-duty they would come into town in their uniforms, which would antagonize the southern sympathetic folks.

they called them lincoln's pups. they would antagonize them to no end, they would yell at them, be very angry toward them. and they would intentionally hoorah for geoff davis, who happened to be the president of the confederacy. that would antagonize the soldiers. they had these people openly supportive of the enemy. they would arrest the citizens that made those comments and take them to the camp at the guardhouse. they would now put them into the guardhouse. and before they would be allowed to leave, they would have to recite the oath of allegiance for the union.

well, the southern sympathizers realized early on that it was a ticket out of the guardhouse. strongout any real emotion behind it it would go through the motions of reciting that both of allegiance and off they would go. as they would leave, they would hoorah for geoff davis again. it became almost a game. but a serious game with weapons involved often times. one incident that really became nationally covered, and became very well known here and elsewhere, was the incident involving a sergeant with the union troopers and a businessman named james wells. james wells had been one of the original founders of the town. he was well-established,

well-respected. he was a strong southern sympathizer. keep in mind, the loyalties and the emotion was so high. friends would turn into enemies over the issue. james wells and charles strobel , a sergeant, one day met each other on the streets of visalia, the main street. and they exchanged words. hostile words. the soldiers thenierso confronted james wells. james wells says "i am unarmed, i didn't mean anything by it, i was critical of you. emotions are,

high." the soldiers began to walk away. wells pulled out a hidden revolver and shot charles strobel after the soldiers were walking away. that incident was covered nationally. and it played into the the violent reputation the town had. by this time, the town was known as the charleston of the west. it was because of its strong southern sympathies. an that was an incident, incident that they said it was so bad -- they pointed to the

visalia incident as the incident that was going to drive californians to the slavery side. people that were friends became enemies. i mean, we hear about on the east coast brothers fighting against brothers. we almost had the same thing here with the citizens of visalia. so it was pretty nasty times. and there were some pretty dark years for visalia. i always find it interesting how when abraham lincoln was assassinated you , would have thought there would been a divided town. some would have cheered, some would have been saddened. the town actually came together. visalia had a little bit of class, in the sense that they said assassination is not the way to go. we had a ceremonial procession for abraham lincoln with a

symbolic coffin and wagon. and both the north and south joined in the procession. it was a high point for a rather low time in visalia history. that was a positive step. because it had become so hostile that i really doubted whether our town, that had only been a town for a decade, i couldn't see how it could survive what they were going through in that 1861-1865 period. it told me that we had capable

leadership on both sides of the issue. that said "we have to do , something to save our town." they did it. announcer: by cities tour staff recently traveled to visalia, to learn more about its history. learn more at c-span.org/citie tour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend commit every weekend on c-span 3. in the 1950's and 60's, the cia secretly funded radio for europe, which a broadcast anti-communist propaganda. kenneth osgood talks about the programs that the u.s. operations, which sought funds of from politicians, corporations and american citizens. was 25 minute interview recorded at the american historical association's annual meeting in chicago.