later on the road to the white house coverage we include donald trump in iowa and president obama campaigning in florida for hillary clinton. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," historian candice millard talking about her book "hero of the empire: the boer war, a daring escape, and the making of winston churchill." mr. lamb: candice millard, your third book, "hero of the empire." where did you travel to write the book? ms. millard: one of the reasons i wanted to write the book was because i had an incredible opportunity. i spent a lot of time in england, obviously in the

churchill archives in cambridge, the national army museum, but what was most fascinating was going to south africa. i spent several weeks there traveling everywhere that churchill did. it was extraordinary. has beenhe boer largely forgotten. not many people know about it, but in south africa it is everywhere, battlefield, museums, archives, specifically for this story i was able to go where winston churchill was captured, to where he was kept as a prisoner of war. the same building is still there, a public library. i stood in the trapdoor in the floor of his room where he had thought about tunneling his way out. i went to where he was hiding in a coal mine shaft with rats. i went into what is mozambique

but was in east africa. they still have the same building that was the british consulate where he went when he was finally a free man. mr. lamb: you mentioned the boer war. how many were there? ms. millard: there were two. the first one was 20 years earlier in 1880 and it was a much shorter war. the british actually lost and this is a second go around. mr. lamb: there are a lot of people possibly at this moment saying, what in the world is a boer? ms. millard: that is right. the boers have been living in south africa for centuries, immigrants largely dutch, german and huguenot. they had over that time transformed into something new, like a new ethnic group. they were not european, african, but they were boer and even developed their own language which was a sort of strange

mixture of dutch, portuguese come all of these words as they needed them that they developed. they were very, very religious. they were unabashedly racist. they were stubbornly independent . most of all, they wanted to be left alone. mr. lamb: winston churchill, when was the first time you got interested in him? what made you think you could write another book on winston churchill? ms. millard: it is audacious, isn't it? they say there are 12,000 books written about him, more than anyone but napoleon and jesus. police me, it felt very daunting i have been interested in winston churchill for a long time, he is absolutely fascinating. not a perfect man by any means but is extraordinary. about 25 years ago i heard this story that when he was a young man he was captured in south africa and was a pow and escaped

and it just stayed with me throughout all of these years because it stunned me. i cannot believe i did not know the story and that this had happened. manuscriptned in the for my second book, i started to think about it more and i thought, "another unknown aspect is the boer war itself." it was really the beginning of modern warfare. i knew i had a larger palette to work with and it is such an incredible adventure story and it is really the formation of a man we know as winston churchill. mr. lamb: getting back to the boer war in a moment, but want to bring folks up to date with your past two books. you wrote about the 2005 called "river of doubt." you are talking about that. [video clip] ms. millard: this was a serious, scientific expedition that became an extraordinary story of survival.

it was a contest of man against nature, man against man and even man against himself. while they were on the river, they lost nearly all of their supplies to rapids. one man drowned, another murdered. the rest of the men, including roosevelt's on sun nearly starve. --own son nearly starve. and they emerged, they were in rags. they were attacked by tribesmen. roosevelt became gravely ill and he nearly took his own life in an attempt to save the other men. banal -- there is there is a fellow that has been written about. ms. millard: it was about this expedition he took them on in the amazon after the election in 1912 for he ran as a third term for a candidate and lost. for the first time in his life he was a pariah.

he had put a democrat, woodrow wilson, in the white house because he has split the republican vote. he was this incredible naturalist. he had invited to south america on a speaking tour. he thought, while i am there i will go on a collecting trip. he gets there, nothing is well-planned and he is given the opportunity to go on this completely unknown river, extraordinarily dangerous, three men died on the trip. as i said, roosevelt nearly took his own life. just this unbelievable encounter. i mean, it was not in adventure. it was with the subtitle said, "historic as, darkest journey." i went to this river and it is incredibly remote. i was able to spend some time with the group that attacked nobody,t and his men in before i wrote this book, the even knew what tried it was. i figured out who it was. i spent some time with them. i sort of understood why they

did not just massacre roosevelt and his men because they certainly could have and had every incentive to do so. it was just this unbelievable experience for me and i loved having opportunity to tell that story. mr. lamb: you used to work for the "national geographic" but this was the first big book. why did the publisher by this idea --buy this idea? ms. millard: i was unknown but it is next ordinary story. richest amazon, the ecosystem in the world, absolutely fascinating. you have the opportunity to talk about all of the interesting things like evolution. you have theodore roosevelt, a figure that is so interesting. again, this is similar to churchill because this is after his career. when the story was sort of known, not much is known about it because not that much attention had been given to it.

because it has a drowning, murder in all of these other things it sold very quickly to my publisher today. i'm very fortunate to have the same publisher, editor, agent for 15 years. mr. lamb: who is the first person in your life this upcoming you know, you can write? ms. millard: that was actually my husband. he was a correspondent with the new york times, a bureau chief and he actually is the person who first told me the story about winston churchill because he began his career as a journalist in south africa covering the anc and he had left at the time to go to law school and start this company, and i was working for him freelance and gave him some clips and when he told me that i could write, i believe him. mr. lamb: how did you get to the kansas city area of kansas? ms. millard: i had actually move there right before my senior year of high school. i father worked for sprint which is headquartered in kansas city.

i grew up in ohio which is another connection i had to james garfield, the second subject of my book. -- the subject of my second book. we started his company in kansas city, growing up in wichita. that is where i met him. i ended up moving here to washington dc for six years to work for national geographic. mr. lamb: how did the first book sell? ms. millard: it's all very well, a new york times bestseller. it was an incredible gift to me because it had all of the elements just to make a good story. mr. lamb: you got married in 2001, but you have three kids in the middle of all these three books? how old are the kids today? 8. millard: 14, 11, it is funny because when people talk about writing a book it is like having a baby, it very much is because it has all been mixed up together for the last 15 years of my life, books and babies. mr. lamb: your second book was 2011 into you are talking about

the james garfield award. [video clip] ms. millard: james garfield was not come as he has been remembered to be, a bland, bearded, 19th-century petition. he was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. although he was born into desperate poverty, he became a professor of literature, mathematics and ancient languages when he was a sophomore in college. by the time he was 26 years old, he was college president. by hearthe entire "and he and wrote the original proof of the pythagorean theorem. mr. lamb: would you discover the story about garfield? ms. millard: i was looking for another subject with a lot of science in it, and i was researching alexander graham bell, just doing general

research and i fell upon the story of him inventing this induction balance to find the bullet in garfield after he had been shot. it really stunned to be because again i had never heard this story before. i cannot really understand it they'll was young, invented the telephone five years earlier, suddenly famous, a little bit of money, that all of these ideas he wanted to pursue, but as soon as garfield was shot, he abandoned everything and turned his world upside down to try to help them, and unlike most americans, i do not know anything about garfield except that he had been assassinated. and so, i started researching him and i was stunned. he was this extraordinary man, absolutely brilliant, incredibly courageous. runaway slave, was instrumental in bringing about black suffrage and had so much promise for our country, and it was such a tragedy and it never should have happened, and i was hooked and i thought, i do not

know if anyone is one to read a book about james garfield. the problem is, not only did they not know anything, they do not think there is interesting to know. he was a pure to come a gilded age president and the one not be interesting. he was absolutely fascinating. it really meant a lot to me that people take a chance on this book. mr. lamb: how much, how much travel did you have to do for that book and where did you go? it was ard: obviously different kind of trouble. i was in ohio a lot doing a lot of research there. his home was made it to the first presidential library and is still 80% original to the time he lived in it. there are a lot of archives in cleveland and i spent a ton of time at the library of congress and the presidential papers. in fact, i had my youngest child is a baby at that time, and i rented an apartment in virginia with my two youngest children and spent all day, every day in the archives and it was extraordinary.

it is amazing that the library of congress has that people do not realize. if i could tell a quick story -- there are a lot of rules, as there should be with our national treasures. was a rule follower so i careful to have one card, five bins. i opened a file it again, this is james garfield, so no one has looked at these for many years, probably since they have been donated and he died in 1881, so i am looking through and i open it up and there is an envelope in this file but the front of the is facing the table. i do not know what is in it. i open it and all of it is fair spilling out --hair spilling out onto the table and on the front is written "clips of garfield's head on his deathbed." i desperately tried to get it back in. i thought my career was over.

at the same time, i was so moved by it. it looked like you could have clipped it from your child's head yesterday. it is this connection that you get to these people that become almost mythical to us. and they have this removed. it was a reminder, he was 49 years old and it was this unbelievable tragedy. there was this human connection that was profound to me at the time. mr. lamb: did you grow up partly in ohio? ms. millard: i did, until i was 17 growing up in ohio. i grew up in lexington. it is kind of between cleveland and columbus, just a small, largely working-class town, a great place to grow up. mr. lamb: what did your parents do? ms. millard: i father worked for the united telephone of ohio and then worked for sprint and my mother was a secretary. -- i haveree sisters

three sisters and a happy childhood. mr. lamb: what did you study? ms. millard: i went to a liberal arts school studying english and bakersfield. i went to texas and went to baylor and got my masters in english. mr. lamb: where did you learn to research? ms. millard: national geographic. i will say it was always my true education because you learned to dig very deeply into a subject, immerse yourself and most importantly of all, i learned how to find the experts. whatever subject you are working on, there is somebody that knows it really, really well and has spent years of their life studying it, and what is extraordinary to me, when i started to write my first book i thought, it is one thing to call someone and say, i am candice millard from national geographic, will you help me? it is totally different to say, i am candice millard. will you help me? not matter. absolutely they helped me because they were enthusiastic about their subject and they were appreciative that somebody was interested in genuinely

wanted to get it right. mr. lamb: on your website there is a video that shows you actual workstation. i assume that is in your home. it shows all of the books on the shelves, your previous books and all of that. we never see your face on this. explain why that is? ms. millard: that is my husband's company. he has his own company, a publishing company and he gave me this fantastic workspace and it really helps having three kids, so i work and school hours, drop them off and then go to work, close the door and i'm in this different world, different time period and it is sort of disconcerting when i have to leave to go pick them up because i have to kind of return to the present day. it is fantastic and as you can see i have three monitors, which when i have to work at home, i really miss them because they are usually useful.

-- hugely useful. mr. lamb: you have told the story of three older white men, why? why not mix it up with other kinds of people? what attracts you to these three liters? ms. millard: like i said, i am looking for a good story. it has to be a strong enough story that can support other things i want to talk about, whether it is the amazon rain forest or the evolution of modern medical care, in this case modern warfare, so you need a strong enough story to keep people with you and so you can talk about all of these other things. i had a ton of primary source material to work with. a lot of letters, diaries, newspaper accounts so i could have dialogue and i could have all those little details you need, especially with narrative nonfiction to hopefully bring a story alive. caneach of these, people tell i write biographies, i do

not write biographies but i hope the story i tell will be illuminating about this person and time. to me it is, to me i can see winston churchill, you can see -- even though on the outside he looks completely different because he is so young, inside he is fully formed and it is fascinating to see that. you see that through his writings in the things everyone around him is saying about him and to watch this growth and no where it is all headed. these are just fascinating stories to me. i am absolutely open and i have my e ideas for in which is a woman. mr. lamb: let's go back to the boer war story and show a map of the south african area. if you can explain to us what we are seeing. ms. millard: when churchill arrived he arrived at the cape of good hope at the war had already begun a few days before and an orange area, that is the main area of war.

and some right where you see pre toria, just below it is lady smith which was already under siege. the british were trapped inside the border surrounding them. churchill wanted to get to the front as quickly as he could. he actually came with a commander-in-chief of south africa. he knew the british army was going to be very slow so he set off on his own, going by train over the into the interior and that he cut across and went to the indian ocean, took a small mail boat until he could get to aal.transv by the time he made it to ladysmith, it was shut down so he had to stop about 40 miles south of it in a little town. mr. lamb: as i was reading your book i thought, these are words in places i have never seen in my life. was there any concern that

people reading it in the united states would be hard to understand? ms. millard: i think there a lot of interest in south africa and we know a lot about the more recent history, obviously with nelsonrtheid and mandela. this really happens before. i knew there would be interest of mapsd we have tons so i try to take them through and explain the history and i hope i can carry the readers with me so they understand what is happening before we actually get to the real action. mr. lamb: twin winston churchill went to this part of the world, how old was he? ms. millard: 24 years old. this is his fourth war on three different continents. he has already written three books and is on the run for parliament and loss. he was a little ambitious. mr. lamb: how was he able to be a correspondent and a military man at the same time? ms. millard: he left the

military so he could run for parliament. the reason he had gone into the military was it was the only job he had ever had, the only job he had been trained for but he called at the glittering gateway into distinction, so he thought, and he threw himself into an incredibly, incredibly dangerous situation again and again so he would be noticed, so that he medals and thought it would propel him to the political stage and fulfill the destiny that he believed he had. it was not happening for him. he was frustrated, moving too slow so he stopped, rent for parliament, lost and he realized ,"i was too soon. i need to make a name for myself." thatthe boer war broke out was the way he could stand up. he had them working as a journalist for a while and that is how he was supporting himself. mr. lamb: you talk about in your

acknowledgments that you were introduced to winston churchill by william manchester? ms. millard: right. mr. lamb: 20 year? -- what year? ms. millard: how many of us can say that? that goes back quite a ways. manchester is extraordinary. in a world of churchill studies, it it is circular to just passed away year ago and it was such a loss because he did such extensive, extensive research. william manchester absolutely brought the story alive for me and for so many readers. i want to do give credit where credit was due because that is what really captured my imagination. mr. lamb: how much of this kind of writing got your attention? manchester's? ms. millard: a lot of it. i think he is very, very vivid. you never feel there is a forced march to get to whatever the big

event is. everything builds up toward it. everything you might think is a transcendental story turns out to be of great importance. it is incredibly vivid. i was absolutely drawn to that. mr. lamb: into this and 12, paul reed was here. he did the third book because william manchester had died. let's listen to a little bit of this. [video clip] mr. reed: he read his plato, aristotle and i said, yes, he is a victorian man but he made himself into a classical man. -- i think he lived a life in accordance, the precursor to the christian ethic you find in plato and greek philosophers, a humanist but godless epic. mr. lamb: you say in your book,

n awas more rooseveltian tha victorian. explain that? ms. millard: that is the american in him. i see a lot of similarities between theodore roosevelt and winston churchill. his mother was american. he always felt a connection to america. he was very much a self advertiser and he was called that. al punter, ad a medlad punt young whippersnapper. it was unusual for a member of the aristocracy, the military to show their ambition openly and that sort of frack about what they had achieved. i always felt that was the american in him and it just makes him unusual, especially for the position he held in england. mr. lamb: i mentioned martin gilbert who died recently.

here she was in 1991 on this program talking about winston churchill, the official biographer. [video clip] >> in 1900 after a battle, many british people claimed victory in south africa. he wrote a piece about a, a journalistic piece and ended his man would seern the face of war more often, ordinary folk would see it hardly." mr. lamb: he went on to lead one of the worst wars in the history of the world. language is good but what does it mean? ms. millard: one of the things that is interesting to me, this story, the part of churchill's life is that when we think of winston churchill we think the older man sending young men into war, but no one knew better, and if you knew as well the

realities of war, the terror and the devastation and he said to his mother after the second war, he had dearly been killed many times. a horse standing next to him was killed. the father was shot off of the top of his hat. he had watched his friends mutilated, sliced to ribbons. he absolutely new the disaster --knew the disaster that war was. he founded exhilarating but he was incredibly clear eyed about it. to me, most importantly, very magnanimous in victory come always the first to reach of the hand of friendship and try to help the enemy rebuilt. i was important to him. that started even in a war in south africa. mr. lamb: when did you start

your research? ms. millard: about five years ago after i finished my manuscript for "destiny of the republic." i had this percolating in my mind and was really interested so i started the research right away. it is a big job. as you were talking earlier, there is a lot to know about winston churchill, even as a young age. a lot of travel involved and a lot of time thinking about it. i think that a lot of people that are interested in writing think that writing is sitting at a keyboard and typing, but it is really thinking. you have to gather all of the information, you have to absorb it and then you have to understand it and then you have to figure off how you are going to tell the story. mr. lamb: when you started the research on this one, oldest was about nine. how have you juggled raising three kids and having time to think and read and research and

travel? ms. millard: it takes longer than i always think it is going to. i always laugh with my editor because i'm always late on my deadline and not just a week or a month but like, a year. i keep saying, "yes, three months, maybe six months." so, it does take longer. i work school hours, and i drop them off and then i go to work and i am in this world and actually i think in some ways it is easier than if i did not have children and the other demands of my time because it forces discipline on you. i know i have this window of time to work and that is. and if so, i really buckle down and it helps to have an office somewhere else. i am not thinking about the laundry or the messy house. mr. lamb: in 1900, how big was the british empire? ms. millard: it was huge.

it was larger than the roman empire was at its height and that was a problem for the british empire because they were spread so thin they were constantly putting down the folds. .- revolts they were winning those other wars but it was very difficult, so i think that is why the boer war surprise them so much because i thought it was going to be another colonial war. it started in october, definitely will be over by christmas and it lasted almost three years. mr. lamb: what was within the british empire, what countries today have control of? it was spread out all over from ireland, all through africa, obviously into india. it was just incredibly diverse and incredibly complex and difficult. i think that is when it all started to come undone. mr. lamb: you say in your book there were 450 million people 1/4r the british empire, a

of the world. how do churchill could in a position of any importance ms. millard: he had a very charismatic mother. his father had been a leader of the house of commons and died at 45 years old. she was a young widow. she caught the eye of many people including the prince of wales. he said, we must push with the best. he was only saying, get me an appointment good whenever more would break out. he wanted to be there. he would push her to push somebody else to get in an assignment so he was always all over the world to try to be noticed. mr. lamb: when did you change your mind as you went through your research?

why did you say, i had no idea? ms. millard: again and again. this happens every single time. i think i understand the story and it turns on me. shocking what was so was how fully formed churchill was at that time. when you read his letters -- there was a love interest, pamela. her the firstto time and he says, i do not know what is going to happen with this election but with every speech i gave i feel my growing power. he had this idea of this destiny that he had. absolutely he had faith.

i do not know what you were like a 23 but i had no idea who i was, who i wanted to be, how to get there but he had it planned out. 1500 toy use a he had soldiers. ms. millard: you can still see some of them. some of them are actually in the war rooms in london. he was fascinated by war. he is a descendent of the duke of marlborough who is considered to be one of the greatest generals. he was very much aware of that legacy. through a royal military academy and he loved the wargames. the first chance he got, he jumped into it. mr. lamb: how many people lived in that area we saw on the map?

boers were: the scattered. there was a large african population which was very much impressed and discriminated against but they were scattered. that is actually what made them a dangerous and difficult enemy because the british were still .ighting in precise lines they had only just given up the red coats. going into the boer war, they had no idea what they were up against. the boers who had been fighting uor centuries with the zulk overhunting, they know how to disappear. you have thousands of people coming thousands of miles to fight this. mr. lamb: i want to share the

cover of your book. you talk about the helmet on the head and you call it a cork helmet. when you see that picture -- where does it come from? ms. millard: that is from an earlier war in sudan. mr. lamb: how much education did he have at this point? ms. millard: only sandhurst. then he went -- it actually took in three attempts to get in but he did not have a college education. when he was in india, his first assignment, he had his mother constantly send him books to educate himself. he?lamb: what rank was he actually got a

trouble with that. there were no rules against being a soldier and corresponded at the time. he was openly critical of the kitchener.specially churchill, because of the role he played, they finally made a rule. you cannot be both. war, whenng the boer he becomes a hero, he goes back and he is asked -- thank you for what you have done -- they had lost battle after battle -- what can we do for you? he says, give me a regiment. he puts them in this horrible

position because he thinks, i cannot do that. churchill understood what he was doing. he wanted to be able to do both. he absolutely wanted to get into a fight. they said, we will let you do it. it is just an incredible turn of events in history. he ended up going with a regiment to victoria and he takes over the prison and he frees the men who had been his fellow prisoners. he imprisoned his former jailers and he watched the flag turn -- you down third mr. lamb: say that you talk to his granddaughter? ms. millard: yesterday she is an extra dinner in person and she has to done --

she is an extraordinary person and she has studied carefully. ,he has made it her career chasing churchill. she has written many books about him. she wrote a book about this. she takes her son with her and they are in this book. is where theses events took place. she spent a lot of time in south africa doing that. here she is talking about the boer war. seizedood on a ledge, the top of the wall and drew myself up. twice, i let myself down in hesitation. then, with a third resolve, scrambled over. landing among the bushes on the other side, winston churchill

placed his feet firmly on the international stage. he could now begin to fulfill his own prophecy. star but i'min my intended to lose something in the world. mother was oner of churchill's daughters. i am forgetting her name. close ande was very her mother took her own life and so, i think she feels a strong connection with her grandfather and that absolutely comes through. mr. lamb: what would you have seen if you had a conversation with winston churchill? seenillard: i would have

an absolutely a rake and, ambitious, fascinating young man who was determined to fulfill what he believed was his destiny and that is what is so interesting about him. there are a lot of young men and women who think they are going to do something great but the difference is that a lot of them wait for things to happen to them. winston churchill seized the opportunity. he could not have predicted what happened to him. he could not have believed it would take this incredible turn. it.eized control of as he said, could i have known that this would lay the foundations for my later life? at that time, he would have been fascinating. mr. lamb: why was he a hero? ms. millard: that is what he had

always wanted to be. be after war, he wants to .allant, noticed he does not want to do something quietly. he thought that that was his pathway to power. absolutely, he was considered a hero. again, the british were losing. this really raised the morale. they needed somebody to get behind. here is this man who had humiliated the boers and had an incredible adventure and it was an incredible boost to all of them and he was a hero and he himself said -- he very quickly ran for prominent. to the primetter

minister and said, there is no question that it was because of my popularity. mr. lamb: i wrote down a quote. all along the front of the skirmish line where everybody else was lying down in cover. without the- and gallery, things are different. again, he wanted to be noticed. he said, given an audience, nothing is to daring or normal. he had bought this horse from a young soldier who had been killed. of the mennishment around him, he rode it onto the battlefield hoping that somebody would notice and think that he was brave.

the chance was more likely that the enemy would notice and first. this is an interesting story about his mother. explain how she was an american. the story about the fundraiser, the party, the same day that he was taken prisoner. her name was jenny. what is that all about? the court that got my attention is that somebody said she was a bit short on brain. ms. millard: no, that was the man she ended up marrying. her father was well known. andhad grown up in brooklyn won several fortunes. her mother took her to france.

after that, she had lord randolph churchill. she was a withering figure in british society and she loved that spotlight. churchill adored his mother but, at a distance. he did not see his parents very much. his mother was busy. threw a huge benefit, wanted to put together a ship to go to south africa. she was in love with a young man who was only two weeks older than winston churchill. she told him, i going to marry george and he said, i think the family pressure will crush him. -- her son took this from her.

she was very determined. she was having a great time. she ended up marrying george and it did not last. he ended up leaving her for another older woman who was an actress. mr. lamb: george cornwallis west was his name. short on brain. ms. millard: hansen, but, yeah -- handsome, but, yeah. mr. lamb: where do you find yourself having the most fun in the book? ms. millard: during his escape. untilis a lot to explain you get to that part of the story. understanding, what was he doing in south africa anyway?

train and he the he is one ofld, the few civilians on the train and is attacked. ofimmediately takes charge the defense of the train even though there are lots of soldiers on the train. their commander is right there. he takes charge. .verybody listens they listen to him and they do what he tells them to do. aliveman who makes it out forits winston church hill saving their lives. free what is left of the train. half of the train was blocking the tracks.

trainere able to get the going while there are bullets. he jumps off because he thinks there are more wounded men. he realizes that they have 40 been taken prisoner. and he reachesrs for his pistol and he realizes that he left it on the train and he was a huge admirer of napoleon in he remembered" saying, if you are alone and unarmed there is no shame in surrender and he raises his hands and surrenders. they take him to a teacher's college and today it is a public library. the building still stands. it was a prison just for officers.

surrounded by a .orrugated iron peeling he was only there for about one month and he immediately -- as soon as he was taken prisoner, he is furious because he thinks that the war is going on without him. escape and he is miserable. that heter, he wrote hated every minute of captivity more than he had ever hated any other period in his whole life. from the moment he was captured, he was making plans to escape. plans.s not simple his plans were, we are going to take over this prison and we're

going to take over pretoria and capture the president -- nobody would listen to him. hiseard these two guys, friend who had been a commander and another guy who was very savvy and spoke afrikaans zulu and hend heard them plotting and escape. there was one corner of the wall that was dark and they knew that if you timed it correctly, you could get over the wall and churchill tells them that he wanted in on the plan and neither of them want to take in. they know that he is too talkative, two famous, and he is not strong enough.

holden feels guilty and says, look, we do not want you to come but i will leave it up to you comingrchill says, i am and he actually makes it over the wall and they don't. he left them behind. as you settle on the map, it is farther north, up from where we saw ladysmith, so, it is farther north, and that it is still, i mean, it is 500 miles north of british cape colony. to the west and the north, it is highly protected by the boers so his only option was to go east, to portuguese east africa. is lamb: this territory under the sovereignty of what? ms. millard: no, the boers. mr. lamb: how did they could the

territory? it fromard: they took the native africans over centuries. in 1833, the british abolished slavery and that was the breaking point for the boers who had always wanted independence had they traveled hundreds of miles into the african interior and a established different republics. the most important of which was where pretoria is. mr. lamb: so, he escaped from prison and what happened to make him a hero and why was he -- how did people know about it yet go even though you thin, he is just a 24-year-old that he was the son of lord randolph churchill and randolph churchill had actually been in south africa a few years earlier boerss hated by the

because he wrote all of these letters that were published in british newspapers external reading them for [indiscernible] and so when they captured winston churchill, it was fantastic. they were thrilled. he represented everything that they despised about the british empire. when he escapes, they are theyiated and enraged and are searching everywhere to recapture him or there is a risk that they will kill him. this is one of these moments where just an incredible instance of luck, so. most of theout britons who were living in the area at the time. the only kept the people that

were essential to them. they are bringing up cool. that is obviously running the , wheny and so churchill he is alone and he has nothing, so, his co-conspirators are still in prison. he does not speak the language. he has nothing. to bet thinks he is going captured and he is desperate and he sees in the distance these fires and he thinks it is an african village and he thinks he will go there and ask for help because he things that the africans hate the boers even more so maybe -- maybe i can get them to lend me a horse but he realizes that these are the fires from a coalerie.

thate stops and realizes he is taking an incredible chance because all he has been doing is hiding and he is going , istep out and he thinks have to, you know? there is no other way. so he comes up with a crazy story and he knocks on the first door that he comes to and john howard opens the door and he stressed that tell him, ina boer and i heard my -- ina boer -- i am a boer -- how my going to pull this off and john looks at him and says, i think you should come inside so he takes into a room and he puts a gun on the table and churchill realizes he has had it the whole time and he turns around and he locks the door and churchill thinks this is not going well for me and he tell youhink i should

the truth and howard says, i think you better, and he says, i am once churchill, and he reaches out his hand and he says, i am english, i'm going to help you, and churchill says it felt like it was like being pulled out of the water from drowning. mr. lamb: there is a lot more to the story. when you aretrust going to your primary source? churchill right about this? what makes you think that he was telling the truth? wrote it in he articles for the morning post. experienceout the and his fantastic autobiography. it is absolutely fascinating but it wasn't just his work. howard -- this other man

-- helps him get out wrote about it as well and small things like he did an interview. he wrote a letter to churchill so i have those sources, as well and the men who were with him so, all of these things corroborate it. mr. lamb: what was the most important? ms. millard: to me, standing on the south african felt and understanding what churchill was feeling because when we think of winston churchill, it seems like a different species. he is an incredibly famous man, far from a perfect man that one of the greatest leaders in the history of the world. standing there, you can

understand his desperation and vulnerability. he is traveling, he was not a religious man but he finally prayed for guidance and help because he has nowhere else to turn and that is something that anybody can understand and there was this shared humanity. mr. lamb: you say the south what is it?t -- ms. millard: it is the terrain of south africa. there is not much there. meing in kansas, it reminds of the kansas horizon just goes on forever. mr. lamb: you have three kids. ms. millard: i have two girls and one boy. read myt daughter has first two books.

she says she is interested in history. mr. lamb: your husband told you you were a good writer? ms. millard: he comes with me when i do research which is fun for me and it is great because he was a war correspondent. especially when i was going to there were a and few dodgy situations, it is nice to have him with me here in , i millard: to be honest have three possibilities but i have a lot of work to do before i know if any of them are going to work. here is the cover of the book, "hero of the empire: the boer war, a daring escape, and the making of winston churchill. our guest has been candace bellard -- candice millard. thank you.

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