and yet it has gone through 13 printings and is still selling well. it's not the biography of a general, but the life story of a man. i got very involved with jackson. he had hardships to overcome. his mother died when he was seven. he never knew why. he grew up unloved. i wanted to try to get a hold of this man, and she told me, i would not tell my therapist -- and she described what he should be, it introverted, quiet, humorless, not a conversationalist at all. that was stonewall jackson to

a t. he grew up like that. we always had a mother and father to whom we could go. he did not. he grew up not knowing what real deep personal love was. he had not had feelings like that before. i cried writing chapter one. i just felt so sorry for him. and yet, he would become the most brilliant general in the world. host: why? professor robertson: his tactics and the deception. even more than that, jackson was fighting for god in this war. i think it makes him a very unique individual. he searched throughout his young adult years for a safe, and he finally found it after he went to lexington, virginia. he became a presbyterian, not really.

he became a calvinist in every sense of the word. he dedicated his life to god. and indeed, although it may sound evangelical, god was his heavenly father. he became the father that jackson never had. everything he did was for god. he gave thanks to a glass of water. knowing this was a gift from heaven. when the war comes, jackson concludes god has placed a scourge on america for reasons human beings cannot understand. but whichever side wins in this war, it is the side that god has blessed. he goes into this war not to fight yankees but to slay the amalekites and to kill the old enemy of biblical times. this is why when the war began, jackson advocated -- take no prisoners. host: where did he get that from? professor robertson: he got it

from the old testament. joshua took jericho and killed every man, woman, and child in town. he saw god also. the belligerent god. he has his love for children. as a therapist told me, the love he had for children came from the love he had not received as a child. in the movie, they developed a wonderful scene based on fact. he met young janie corbyn who was five years old and that was an attraction between the two of them. and when jackson was not directing the war, he was down on his knees, just loving her to death.

just before the battle of chancellorsville, where he was mortally wounded, janie fell ill of scarlet fever. we would know it today as strep throat, and she died. it was just a blow. it just struck him down. in the movie "gods and generals,," you just see them walk out of the field. he just slowly goes to pieces over the loss of janie corban. if you were to walk into a big auditorium full of people, he would be repulsed. too many strangers. too much talking he have to do. but if there was a little child, you would go to that child and say, hello. and he and that child would become close because jackson felt satisfaction from giving a child to love he himself never

had. host: how many years did he live? professor robertson: he was 39. host: that is not why we asked you to come here. we really appreciate your time. you are retired but still active. professor robertson: i am more active now than when i was teaching. host: we wanted you to talk about a book you did called "after the civil war." you talk about things that happened after the civil war -- one of the things i wrote down, you started off in your preface about this, james hanger's loss of a leg. professor robertson: jim hanger went off with his unit. that was in june of 1861. a union attack came from robert

-- from war recruits and jim hanger was wounded very badly and he lost a leg. the surgeons of that day who saved his life gave him the usual peg leg that we all hear about. it was very uncomfortable. after his capture in treatment, he went back home. he stayed in upstairs room. he was good at furniture making and carpentry. for about three weeks, they could hear him banging around. suddenly, one day he comes stomping down the steps. he had carved a leg like his original leg. he began to make prosthetic limbs. it all went with a young teenager who did not like a stump for a leg.

host: i counted 70 people you wrote about in this book. i'm just going to toss out some names. i don't know how you remember all this stuff, but i will ask anyway. jubal early -- you said the cult of lost causes. what was that? professor robertson: he never surrendered mentally. he just thought that yankees overwhelmed them. after the war, totally reconstructed, he tried to keep the confederate dream alive. he began to perpetuate on what today we call the lost cause period, mainly that the south was correct in what it wanted to do, but it was overwhelmed by heathen forces and robert e. lee as the 13th disciple. his associates in many prominent places had animus against anyone who went against the old

confederate feeling. they had particular animus against longstreet whose cousin had married u.s. grants. long street becomes the judas all the lost cause and they just butchered long street in print and speeches. john mosby joined the republican party, and they went after him, too. he would never accept defeat. when he died at the turn of the century, and he was buried in his confederate uniform. he is the personification of an unreconstructed southerner. in contrast, a general from louisiana, his first battle was may of 1962.

1862. of his left leg was shot off. he came that she went home and recuperated, he came back, and then his left arm was shot off. in 1877, when the democrats finally got into power, they ran nichols for governor. they used a unique motto. "we are running all that is left of general nichols." he won in a landslide on amongst the x confederates -- ex-confederates. host: would you give a quick synopsis? when was the civil war fought? professor robertson: 1861 to 1865. host: how many search? -- how many soldiers, and any women involved? prof. robertson: 3 million men roughly. one million southerners. yes, women did serve. how many we do not know but

there were a lot that got into the army. it says something. i've seen figures. i don't know, i'm not sure if anyone really knows. there are many women. host: how many were killed in the north -- i mean southern soldiers -- and in the south? professor robertson: the total fatalities, the war department way back made a computation of 612,000 dead. i think it is woefully inadequate. i would say three quarters of a million. host: how many in the north and how many in the south? professor robertson: probably two to one. 250,000 here, there.

probably because the numbers were smaller. but you have to add another half-million who were mentally or physically disabled by that war. amputated limbs and whatnot. you're talking about a 33% loss. host: knowing what you know now, if you were a southerner back in those days, what side would you have fought on? professor robertson: fought for the south. because states rights were so embedded. this is what a lot of students fail to see. let me use my own state as an example. when the united states constitution was established and the nation began, virginia was 180 years old. 180 years old. in 1861, when civil war comes, the lee family had been in virginia for 225 years. when robert e. lee said i cannot draw my sword against my

birthplace, he was referring to the commonwealth of virginia. the united states was not old enough to have wisdom. much less efficient government. state allegiance was very deep. it went as far back in generations. i think one has to keep that in mind. i am not belittling slavery. slavery is, without question, the major cause of the civil war. but you could explain the actions of good, decent men like robert e. lee and the pious stonewall jackson. they fight because virginia needs them not that they support the confederate cause. they did not believe in slavery. his state needs them, and so he went to war. host: so, you taught 20,000 students at virginia tech over the years. how many in a classroom when you did your lectures?

professor robertson: when we were on the quarter system, there were 577. then when we went over to the semester system, so you did not haven't as many -- you did not have as many electives, so it went to 350. host: after you spend a semester with the students, what did they most often say what they change their mind about? professor robertson: the human element. that is the way i taught history. history should be the most exciting subject of all because it is the story of human beings. god's most unpredictable creatures. no two human beings are alike. you can't say that about the other species. mark twain once said that human beings are the only animals that need to blush. we are unpredictable. feelings are most lacking in civil war history.

we just don't realize how to control the feelings. it is easier to make a college class laugh, but is difficult to make them cry. but i worked at it. i wanted them to feel that heartache and sadness. i wanted them to feel patriotism, which incidentally, first comes out in the civil war. we had no country to feel patriotic about until we fought ourselves. if you doubt that, go to a national cemetery. where men who love their country most, more than life itself, now live. you will see men who gave themselves for the country, north or south. we must remember that. i can make a class cry. i've succeeded. host: what story, over time, has made a class cry? professor robertson: you just start quoting.

why not let the soldiers do the talking? i have presented about 130 vignettes, none of which have a bearing on the outcome of the war, but they invest with the emotions and feelings. sally was the mascot and the men in the regiment loved her and she loved them. she hated civilians. she was dedicated to her soldiers. pardon me. at gettysburg, they lost her and they thought she was dead, but cleaning up the battlefield, they found her lying, guarding 11 members who had been killed. in early february, 1865, at a heavy scrimmage, sally was killed. two soldiers took down their muskets and with their hands,

they dug a grave and very little -- and buried little sally. and as paul harvey would say, that was not the end of the story. pennsylvania put up a monument in gettysburg and from afar it looks like all other monuments with a soldier standing, but down on the ledge at the bottom, there is the little figure of sally and her eyes are wide open. she is keeping watch into eternity. that story, i think, affected people more than any other. animal stories. the human interest stories are there, 20. there are some funny things involved. young grace is around 10 years old in 1860. she wrote candidate abraham

lincoln a letter and she basically said, mr. lincoln, you are an ugly man. my friends and i agree that if you grow what beard, it might lessen the ugliness of your face and make you more attractive to the voters. lincoln got the letter, he said ok, and he grew that beard for which he is now famous. she changed the face of history with that letter she wrote. it makes you human. you have to do that with history. you can't sit back and pass judgment on events over 150 years ago. i get upset when i hear someone say at gettysburg, if generally had done this or if he had not done that, the self might have -- the south might have won that war. if generally had 100 50 years

150f general lee had years did think it over, i guarantee you he would have done something different at gettysburg. you cannot pass judgment like that. you have to think about the narrow lens that these men had at that particular time. that is the only way you will understand history. host: how much money did the north have to support the war, and how much money to the south have? professor robertson: it's almost incomparable. the union had everything, especially industry. the south was leaning heavily on agriculture. cotton in particular. william t. sherman, whose sanity many people question, lived in louisiana until before the war started, and he said, you people are crazy. no nation of farmers is going to wage a successful war against industrialists. you and the south are doomed to failure. it was this industrial revolution that killed them. you see these mass charges when

you go back to the middle ages. before long, the rifle has replaced the musket, which means the range of killing power has jumped five times farther. the weapons have become bigger and more destructive. we have the gatling gun, all kinds of new weapons coming out. even artillery, increased ranges, deadly firepower. so these soldiers are coming across the field. they are just destined to be slaughtered. it ends in civil war where the advantage shifts to the defense. host: you named bedford forrest and your book. you wrote a chapter about him, but you connect it to the german blitzkrieg in world war ii. professor robertson: these cavalry, these men would gallop miles and miles. these men would have a sub attack beave surprise

successful, go back on their horses, and ride back. the germans did that same kind of thing on the eastern front especially. in poland and in russia. nathan bedford forrest was the godfather of the blitzkrieg. host: how did you teach yourself about the civil war? professor robertson: i don't know. i just kept learning. i was fortunate in my top time -- in my time and circumstance. i studied under an outstanding social historian. but then, i had the good fortune to be appointed by president kennedy as director of the united states centennial commission. i got a postgraduate education. the chairman, the most listing historianstinguised of our day, and we became almost like father and son. host: these are historians? professor robertson: yes, all

first-rate, top historians. i just learned from them. you can smell the gunsmoke and hear the screams when he writes. he taught me a lot about writing. he told me the blanket research, that is, you cover everything. you just don't go out looking for particulars. you cover everything in the search. from them, i learned these tidbits. i may be self-made but it was done at the inspiration and directorship of many others. host: you have a phd from emory? in what? professor robertson: in history, and i have a doctor in letters in a doctor of humanities from shenandoah as well. host: how many battlefields did you go to? professor robertson: how many? host: how many did you travel to, yeah? professor robertson: all of -- i've been to all of the major ones. i'm not too interested in strategy and tactics. i'm interested in the common soldiers.

i wrote a popular book called "soldiers blue and grey," letting the soldiers tell their own story. that is what i am interested in. the people. the people and how they feel. how they think and react. host: you talk about seven presidents being pushed by the civil war, and i'm going to ask you about each of those. but first if you are 19, 20, 21 years old or even older in the days of the civil war, how did you get out of it? professor robertson: you could buy your way out. if your father owned 20 slaves, you were automatically exempt in the south. host: why? professor robertson: you are determined by the congress you are more valuable at home overseeing the slaves. host: did anyone go buy slaves? professor robertson: yes, they

went to great lengths. you may get yourself out of service at you have to have it to stay out. andrew carnegie. jay gould, the great business magnets were able to convince union authorities they knew so much about making machinery and guns and matériel for the north. host: you write about them in the book? what is a your opinion of somebody you what -- what it cost them to buy their way out? >> it would start at $500 and then go up basically in that range, but that was a lot of money back in those days. it was certainly 10 times more than it would be today. host: where were that money go to?

who do they pay it to? professor robertson: to the men who went in their place. if i interpret it correctly, after you have bought him, you hope he gets killed. because once he is dead, you are dead. host: was it legal? was it know that people were buying -- professor robertson: oh, yes. you get a whole class of bounty jumpers who have made a living going around signing up his substitute and my substitute and just buying up all these payments and no one reporting for duty. probably the best or the worst of the love was in indiana bounty jumpers who was executed on christmas day 1864, i think it was. i think he had done it 38 times. he was accepted substitute. just made a hunk of money. host: i remember grover cleveland bought his way out. professor robertson: mm-hmm. host: any other presidents? professor robertson: i don't

think so. that would be a disadvantage in a political campaign. host: george mcclellan, you write about. general george mcclellan. tell us about him. professor robertson: brilliant. brilliant commander. probably one of the greatest organizers of armies in american history. mcclellan's problems were many, but i think leaving them was he was a perfectionist. he was never ready. his army was never polished. it was never completely sound and shining and equipped and ready to go into battle. host: who was he? where did he come from? professor robertson: he was from pennsylvania and he graduated second in his class, he was a rising star in the prewar years. so much so, he was sent to monitor the crimean war. he was the american officer who

went over to learn what the european said to offer in terms of strategy and tactics. he was a very promising young man. they got tired of the slow pace of army promotions. he resigned and became president of a big railroad. when the war started, he went back to pennsylvania to offer his services to the state. when he passed by ohio, the governor asked him to come by columbus. he was so impressed that he gave him a major general's promotion and put him i and charge of the ohio troops. mcclellan was over the mountains of west virginia winning little skirmishes when the disaster at manassas occurred. mcclellan's report of these skirmishes sounded like he thought armageddon here in apocalypse there. he glorified himself. mr. lincoln was impressed, called him in east, put him in charge of the largest union army.

mcclellan spent the next nine months building this army and making it the largest fighting force the country at ever seen. 120,000 men all decked out. when it comes battle time, he just cannot put that creation into battle. so he hesitates and he drags his feet there. he blames all the problems he has on officials in washington, who hamper his conduct in the war. mcclellan was greatly influenced by a french military man. he always taught that you mass as many men into position. then the enemy will equip.

-- the enemy quits. mcclellan was a great chess player. down the line, the men who eventually won the war grant and sherman don't know a hoot about chest. but they are great checkers players. they know how to clean the board. wiping out all the opposition. that is how the north winds. maccallum's cannot win the war. brian: how did the general run for president in the middle of the civil war? james robertson: mcclellan was fired and went home. the army of the potomac for the most part still loved him. he kept them out of battle. he did not risk their lives by extending a needlessly into combat. he has strong support in the military. brian: how would he have been? james robertson: early 40's. in new jersey, the democratic party got a hold of him and his ego was such. he ran for such president's.

initially the remick adds -- democrats are running on the piece for prayer -- platform. -- peace platform. mcclellan did not believe in that. he did not convince enough people. everybody thought that mccullen was going to end the war. mainly because lincoln was the beneficiary of some timely victories. by the spring -- summer of agencies before, lincoln was lincoln was 1864, convinced they were going to lose. one of the arguments we historians have is when the climactic moment of the war. gettysburg, antietam, the summer of 64? i think it is the summer 64. everyone is losing. sherman had taken off with atlanta and they waltzed all the way down.

other offenses coming up the james river were disastrous. a campaign in southwest virginia fell apart. mr. lincoln wrote a conciliatory loader -- letter concerning defeat. and things turn around. suddenly they when enabled victory at mobile. a few months later, sherman takes control of the shenandoah valley. sherman takes atlanta. and the tide is beginning to shift and although grant has believed him down and seemingly nothing has happened, that is important stagnant points of the war. nevertheless, down momentarily. by autumn, the unions on to victory. brian: how big did abraham lincoln when?

james robertson: it was not close. he allowed the soldiers to come home and vote. the soldiers who previously had been so much in support of mccullen now see that it is not an empty piece, but in the course victory we're capable of getting. the ownership was a determining force. brian: in your chapter on george mcclellan, handed up governor? james robertson: new jersey politics is like anyone else's, nobody else was around. the opposition disgraced themselves and go off a boat and drowned. today, the state capital of heavily in -- helena beautiful statue. mcclellan had a short life.

he died of pneumonia in the mid-50's. one of the things i do in this book and largely because i work myself the graduate school in the funeral business in atlanta, i determined the cause of these deaths of these men who died. stanton, asthmatic. the secretary of war. he had a heart attack from wheezing. and yet, talking to medical associates, you can say he died of asthma but it might've been lung cancer. they knew so little in those days. the causes you have to guess at. brian: back your statement about working in the funeral business. what kind of work to do to? james robertson: everything.

the days when the funeral homes maintain services and i worked in the embalming. i have conduct funerals and i did my work. can you think of a quieter place to study than a funeral home? i thoroughly enjoyed it. i did it for four years. brian: what did you learn about death? james robertson: i learned a lot of things. i have great respect, i love the business. it is a caring business. -- a caring business. you see people in their most honorable and you don't you can to help. i thought it was an honorable thing to be involved in. i can sell of the business, but i enjoyed the work and helping people. brian: you mentioned several times the impact of the civil war on medicine. can you tell us more? james robertson: certainly.

if you wanted to be a physician in 1860 and he wanted to be the best, you went to the jefferson medicine cause. the curriculum was two years. the second-year was a repetition of the first year. they could teach you everything known about the field of medicine in one year. although they are called surgeons, i doubt if one in 25 had ever held a scaffold or wanted to. they are basically trained pharmacist who had a bag load of pills and not a great friday. -- not a great variety. opium. simple drugs. they don't know the basics. they are never taught graduate school, medical school anything about military medicine. how do you treat a gunshot room -- wound? they don't know. i have great sympathy for physicians, most historians do

not. given the limitations of the knowledge, i think they did a remarkable job. one of the individuals after the civil war, the father of modern military medicine, it was letterman who just conceived of all kinds of things, three stages of hospitalization. a first aid station on the battlefield. a field station behind and a dental hospital back of the rear. he established lines of transportation and he prioritized injuries. it was not who got here first. he initiated medical records, each man has his own medical record. he organized an ambulance corps to get the wounded off the field as quickly as possible. i think a good comparison would be to the battle of shiloh. this was before letterman came to the forefront and the battle

was friday and several days later, the day the wounded were still on the field. the wounded were mostly desperate battle of gettysburg, by july 5, the benefit was clean. -- the battlefield was clean. all the wounded had been removed. he literally saved thousands of lives by his medical treatment. the chief of the medical services in eastern europe and in 1945, he once wrote not a day goes by in world war ii that i did not think god for jonathan letterman. brian: if you are a soldier during the civil war and you had a leg blown off, what would they do? what about the pain and operating? you mentioned opiates. do they have medicine? james robertson: they had crude medicine.

samuel crawford had chloroform. if you want a cigarette or cigar you have explosion so they used chloroform. depending how often they operated with anesthesia or without, we don't know. oftentimes when it was said to given a shot of looksee -- whiskey and the men held you down and the amputation occurred. physicians were often criticized for quick to abdicate. -- to amputate. i dispute that. you keep a man lineup there and you have nothing -- know nothing about antiseptics and you're just inviting gangrene. and other diseases to take over. rather than giving it daily to get -- treatment, just cut it off and start afresh. i think was the most promising

of the treatments. they were free to amputate. and they did it. brian: seven presidents, i will avoid abraham lincoln at the moment. started before the civil war, james buchanan. james robertson: worst president. he was a man who just got caught up in the chaos of the 1850's. he had a dilemma. on the one hand he did not think secession was constitutional on the other hand, he cannot find anything in the constitution to stop them. and enable him to stop the secession process. his closest friends were southerners. he was just can't miss tremendous dilemma and all he could hope for was to get out of office before the explosions came. which he managed to do.

you can -- didn't you can it was an attorney -- james buchanan was an attorney and out of touch with the people. he had no gracious hostesses to make to the white house enjoyable. he just bungled badly. a revisionist today are saying and coming to his defense. revision does not -- brian: right after the civil war and when abraham lincoln was killed, andrew johnson. james robertson: he is next to last. johnson was a total mistake. he was a democrat. 1954, lincoln thought it would itin 1864, lincoln thought would be politically to his advantage to have a democrat run on the republican ticket and johnson did.

when lincoln died, there was a democrat and republican administration and nobody liked him. he had a terrible personality. he had come out of poverty. he had this ingrown enmity to men of wealth and property. men of influence, he just did not get along with. he gets into trouble with radical republicans in congress and nobody wanted him or paid attention to him. he ends up getting impeached. brian: what is a radical republicans stand for? james robertson: they were hardline a problem can's -- republicans who did not agree with lincoln's construction. lincoln asked that 10% of residents pledge allegiance to the union and the state can come back. the radical republicans said, my god, we thought a four-year war. the sense of secession must be punished.

they went out to the south with a vengeance. they were led mostly by abolitionists who proved to be abolitionists of the moment. once the 13th amendment is out and blacks are free, once piece -- peace comes, it is apathy over the north while involved -- the radical republicans really helped the black man is very open to argument over the long-haul. brian: u.s. grant. james robertson: he is a hero of the civil war. it is grants determination that wins the war. after the war, he fully expected to be elected president. parties wanted him to run. he did not know anything about politics. compromising, political acumen of altar he just sat back and accepted all the gifts and the accolades for two terms.

he runs on a simple statement, let us have peace in the country is on apart. he introduced a system of nepotism never challenged until the kennedys came into office and every relative was put on the payroll and several of his most comic cabinet members for a most indicted for high crimes and misdemeanors. it was a terrible eight years. which proves once again that the nation can survive the voters. we survived the great regime and there are revisionists who disagree with that. brian: two well known historians writing major books on u.s. grant. why all of a sudden? james robertson: the previous writing has been so critical that i suspect there try to find new points and give branches do. -- grant his due.

he was not captivating. i don't know, he was determined. he just would not quit as a general. you see this in vicksburg and petersburg. you just keep patting and -- keep pounding and pounding. indeed i'm talking about the 1864 election, grant had not beaten lee, but he had him pinned down. he had taken away the one thing his great army had going for them and that was mobility. they cannot move. it was trapped. he was quite willing to let time, desertion, disease do what the army cannot too. brian: how many horses killed? james robertson: 1.5 million. killed. all died.

misuse, battle wounds vital ones, when when the half-million. james robertson: miss use -- misuse, one in half-million. it is heartbreaking. brian: how many books are yours and print? james robertson: a half-dozen. brian: i counted 11 on amazon. which is the best seller? james robertson: stonewall jackson. it is in the 15th printing. and the untold civil war is second. it is very attractive thanks to national geographic's hard work. brian: rutherford b. hayes, what did he do? james robertson: part of the 1864 all-encompassing campaign that great initiated and hayes went from that to the white

house. he had had distinguished career in ohio and was elected president in 1876 and his one memorable act was to order the end of reconstruction. the occupation of the south and officially ends. one thing the voters liked about him where his, sister served one -- he promised to serve one team. -- one term. it was an interesting term. president hayes and his wife were teetotalers. they were very evangelical. no alcohol, no smoking. the first lady became known as lemonade lucy. they had a state dinner and after this date during the -- dinner the secretary of state came out and said what a wonderful evening and the water for the campaign.

-- flowed like champagne. brian: how many men were wounded in battle that cannot be -- came to be presidents? james robertson: hayes and grant. he thought with crutches, grant. mckinley was ok. two of them were hurt. brian: we move into a couple presidents and you have their assassins in your book. to start with, garfield. what did he do? james robertson: garfield was a brilliant man and probably the last president of poverty that we've had. he worked himself up. he was chief of staff to union general until 1863 when he went to congress and served as a loyal republican until 1880 and

was more or less the compromise candidate. the republican party was split into two wings and each of those wings could not get its potential nominee nominated so want to garfield. he had been in office for months. again, showing a lack of mecine. the bullet they get to surgeons was somewhere in his body and each day they were going with a finger and try to find the bullet. garfield lingered on her 59 days before he died. -- for 59 days until he died. the assassin statement in court, i did not kill garfield, the doctor did. -- just shot him.

i felt that people should know what is in the mind of an assassin, so they know what is in the mind of the people they wound. i felt that both assassins needed some kind of identification. what makes a man want to kill the president? especially in the case of mckinley who probably was the most popular president in office during his heyday. everybody loved him. except for the absolute poor. he served a second term and everybody loved him. why would somebody to shoot him? the assassin ended up being an anarchist. to equal the thing, he would kill the habs group -- have's group to balance the status.

brian: what about mckinley and the civil war? james robertson: he was a sergeant. brian: did they know each other? james robertson: yes they did. he did what he could to help. though he was in poor health. brian: from your knowledge of history, is there any comparison with the civil war era and today? james robertson: yes. it is what worries me. i see in today's politics the polarization and negativism. the chaos of a dysfunctional government. i see the 1850's all over again.

i'm truly alarmed. the country seems, people seem to think that america can exist over any kind of impediment and that is not true. democracy is the most tenuous form of government. it can't take much of a beating as only people are involved. yet our leaders don't seem to know this. what disturbs me and i hate to get political, but what disturbs me are our leaders who just don't know history. harry truman once said the best news i get is the history i did not know. leaders today are not like that. they are politicians. and politicians think of the next generation. statesmen think of the next generation. brian: what do you think is happening? james robertson: we don't have

heroes. we lost that love of country that has brought us so far. one reason, we have lost sight of the one thing, the only thing that holds this country together and it's a willingness to compromise. united states compromise -- constitution is the greatest manual of comfort my street it shows the give-and-take of the founding fathers and we don't to this today. i cannot understand how our national leaders can make the statement that i will not compromise and feel himself worthy of an office in a democratic government. compromise and democracy are the same thing. brian: were we better off as a country that the north one? james robertson: absolutely. there's no question about that.

if the south had won we would have become the balkans of the western hemisphere try to get together in a nebulous bit of misfits. california and montana have nothing in common massachusetts and kansas would have had nothing in common. the union had to be. it would have been disastrous for the nation to try and continue to exist. brian: you were born in 1930. and you are still at it. why? james robertson: i love what i do. i love history. it is the most exciting subject that there is. it is the study of human beings, or they are and what they could be and what they were not. i have great respect for history. one of the first adages, in the

nation that forgets his past has no future. it would cut 3000 years of documents the point that out. it is exciting. i get up in the morning excited. brian: this is a personal thing from we invited you a couple must come on the program and the day you were to come here you fell down the steps and posted your left arm -- busted your left arm. how is it you are so repaired? james robertson: i had probably the best elbow orthopedist in the nation. brian: how much damage did you do? james robertson: i was working on this program and the doorbell rang and it disrupted my thinking and i went down the steps and halfway down i went elbowing and fortunately, i landed on the elbow. it could have been on my head or my writing arm or an arm or leg or hit. -- hip.

the first orthopedist said on a scale of 1-10, you have a 12. but he put me in touch with this orthopedist and douglas chapman and all he does his elbows and in 53 minutes he inserted a new elbow and cleaned up the old one and here i am. there are certain things i can't do yet and maybe never can but i'm alive. brian: we are glad that you are here. i'm sorry our first appointment did not work out. are you writing anymore and lecturing? james robertson: i'm lecturing all the time. writing, not really. i've done a little book about a huge collection at a big library in virginia called civil war echoes in virginia and comes out late this month. i'm looking around at the history of the peninsula between

the potomac which was seemingly isolated during the war and if i can find enough letters and diaries are my think there's a good story to tell of the suffering and isolation. brian: stonewall jackson, eliminating him for the moment, if you had one person that you wrote about that you would like to sit down with, who would it be? james robertson: generally. james robertson: -- general lee. i would just to why he was the nation's greatest reconciliatory when northerners and southerners are butting heads, he was talking about reconciliation. it was a necessity of bringing the nation back together again. he demonstrated that by taking a bankrupt college and making it an international institution. washington and lee university.

and the way, one of the ways he thought about reconciliation was to his credit and this, sounds critical, to his critical he forgot the past. he would not talk about the civil war. he would not grant you know breeze -- interviews or right memoirs. he would be certainly violently opposed to the confederate flag in any shape or form -- for being shown. the war is over. i have lead people into battle and now i must leave men to peace. brian: our guest is professor james robertson. teacher at virginia tech. the book we are talking about, he has about 20 of them, after the civil war, the heroes, villains, civilians who changed america. we thank you for coming in. glad you are well.

james robertson: thank you so much for having me. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q and a.org. q and a programs are also available at c-span.com and at c-span progress -- podcasts. >> if you enjoyed this week's q & a interview with james robertson, here are some other programs you might like. author stephen pouliot on his book, the assault that drove america to civil war. historian harold holster discusses his book.

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history and costs and problems of the f-35 jet fighter. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: it is monday, august 8, 2016. on today's "washington journal", we'll talk about the libertarian party, changes to voter i.d.'s and the f-35 fighter program. we begin our program on the road to the white house with both hillary clinton and donald trump actively reaching out to voters and the other political party. we decided to turn our phone lines over to viewers who have decided to cross party lines when it comes to your presidential pick. two phone lines on "washington journal". if you are democrat supporting donald trump, the number is