mayor and presidential candidate pete buttigieg speaks on u.s. foreign-policy at india the university in bloomington. ♪ 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. i think the boer has been 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 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 portuguese 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. this was the second one. 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 and koi koi 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. it felt very daunting to me, but 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. after i turned in the manuscript 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 own son nearly starved. when 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. mr. lamb: there is a fellow that has been written about. teddy roosevelt. what is that book about? ms. millard: it was about this expedition he took them on in the amazon after the election in 1912 for he ran for a third term as a third party candidate, bull moose 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. it was just this unbelievable encounter. i mean, it was not in adventure. it was what the subtitle said, his darkest journey. i went to this river and it is incredibly remote. i was able to spend some time with the group that attacked roosevelt and his men in nobody, before i wrote this book, the even knew what tried it was. -- even knew what tried it was. -- tribe 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 buy this idea? ms. millard: i was unknown but it is this ordinary story. you have the amazon, the richest 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, and murder and 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 believed him. mr. lamb: how did you get to the in kansas city area of kansas? ms. millard: i had actually moved 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 subject of my second book. you he 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 sold 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? ms. millard: 14, 11, 8. 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. here you are talking about the james garfield book. [video clip] ms. millard: james garfield was

not 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. him he knew the entire aeneid by heart in latin. while in congress, he wrote the original proof of the pythagorean theorem. where do 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.

the really understand it because -- elevated in the -- alexander graham bell 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 like most americans, i did 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. hid a 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 wants 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 bearded, 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? ms. millard: obviously it was a different kind of trouble. to travel very -- travel. 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 was 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.

i am a rule follower, so i was carefully following the rules. you can have one card, five bins. i opened a file, and 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 hair spills 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.

we study them 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 have three sisters and a happy childhood. mr. lamb: what did you study? ms. millard: i went to a liberal arts school studying english and 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 always say it was 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? it did 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 at your 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 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 leaders? 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. for each of these, people can 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 some ideas for my next one, and is a woman. one 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 the orange area, that is the main area of war. and some right where you see pretoria, 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 into the interior and that he cut across and went to the indian ocean, took a small mail boat until he could get to the transvaal. 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 and 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 the apartheid and nelson mandela.

in this really happens before. i knew there would be interest in in it and we have tons of an maps so i try to take them and through and explain the history and i hope i can carry the readers with me so they understand what is happening and before we actually get to the real action. you are mr. lamb: when 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 day books and has already -- books and has already run for parliament and lost. 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 situations again and again so he would be noticed, so that he could win 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." when the boer war broke out that was the way he could stand up. he was little over the military to leslie what there is a correspondent. 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: what year? ms. millard: how many of us can say that?

that goes back quite a ways. manchester is extraordinary. in the world of churchill studies, it it is sir martin gilbert, who 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 wanted to 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 tangential story turns out to be of great importance. it is incredibly vivid.

i was absolutely drawn to that. mr. lamb: in 2012, 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 epoch. mr. lamb: you say in your book, he was more rooseveltian than a 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. he was called a medal punter, a young whippersnapper. it was unusual for a member of the aristocracy, the military to show their ambition openly and in that sort of brag about and 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 he was in 1991 on this inhere he was in 1991 on this program talking about winston churchill, the official biographer. [video clip] in an >> 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 piece "if modern man would see a the face of war more often, ordinary folk would see it hardly." will hardly." in mr. lamb: he went on to lead one of the worst wars in the history of the world. in an language is good but what and him 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 and 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 nearly been killed many times. a horse standing next to him was killed. the feather was shot off of the top of his hat. here killed men. he had watched his friends mutilated, sliced to ribbons. he absolutely knew the disaster that war was. he found it exhilarating, but he was incredibly clear eyed about it. to me, most importantly, very magnanimous in victory. always the first to reach of the hand of friendship and try to help the enemy rebuild. 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. 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 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? ms. millard: 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 under the british empire, a 1/4 of the world. how did churchill get in a position of any importance whatsoever at the age of 24?

ms. millard: a lot of it was thanks to his mother. he had a very beautiful, 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, this is a pushing age and we must push with the best. he was always saying, get me an appointment. 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? when 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.

with this what was so shocking was how fully formed churchill was at that time. when you read his letters -- there was a love interest, pamela. he is writing to her the first time he ran for parliament, 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. he absolutely he had faith. i do not know what you were like at 23, but i had no idea who i was, who i wanted to be, how to get there but he had it planned out.

mr. lamb: you say he had 1500 toy soldiers. ms. millard: he did. 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. he went 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? ms. millard: the boers were scattered. there was a large african

population, which was very much in oppressed and discriminated against but they were scattered. that is actually what made them a dangerous and difficult enemy because the british were still fighting 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 for centuries with the zulu or hunting, they know how to disappear. you have thousands of people coming thousands of miles to fight this war they know nothing about. 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. it actually took in three attempts to get in but he did not have a college education. he felt that deeply. when he was in india, his first assignment, he had his mother constantly send him books to educate himself. that was a theme throughout his life. mr. lamb: what rank was he? what was the arrangement that he was also a correspondent the echo -- correspondent? ms. millard: he actually got in trouble with that. there were no rules against

being a soldier and correspondent the time. he was openly critical of the genitals, especially kitchener. they hated him. because of churchill, because of the role he played, they finally made a rule. you cannot be both. you can be in the military or be a correspondent, but you can't be both. then, during the boer war, when 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. want to go and fight. 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.

here it had a commitment to the morning post be there correspondent. 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 -- pretoria 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 torn down. mr. lamb: you say that you talk to his granddaughter? ms. millard: yes, she is an extraordinary person and she has studied carefully. she has made it her career, chasing churchill. she has written many books about him.

she has dollar on the world. she wrote a book about this. it's a different kind of book print she takes her son with her and they are in this book. saying, ok, this is where these events took place. she spent a lot of time in south africa doing that. mr. lamb: here she is talking about the boer war. >> i stood on a ledge, seized 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. just 25, he could now begin to fulfill his own prophecy.

i have faith in my star, but i'm intended to lose something in the world. ms. millard: her mother was one of churchill's daughters. i am forgetting her name. anyway, she was very close and 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? ms. millard: i would have seen an absolutely arrogant, 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. he seized control of it. 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. war after war, he wants to be gallant, 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 this man who had humiliated the boers and had an incredible incredible adventure and it was an incredible boost to all of them and he was a hero and he he himself said -- he very quickly ran for parliament and one. he wrote a letter to the prime minister and said, there is no question that it was because of my popularity. mr. lamb: i wrote down a quote. road on my gray pony all along

the front of the skirmish line where everybody else was lying down in cover. at the end -- and without the gallery, things are different. ms. millard: again, he wanted to be noticed. he said, given an audience, nothing is to daring or normal. -- nothing is to daring or two daring org it -- too too noble. he had bought this horse from a young soldier who had been killed. to the astonishment of the men 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. mr. lamb: 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. she had grown up in brooklyn and he had won several fortunes. her mother took her to france. after that, she met 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 was put in boarding school at a young age. he did not see his parents very much. this father was busy. his mother was busy. when churchill is going off to war she threw a huge benefit, , wanted to put together a ship to go to south africa. one of the reason she wanted to go was because 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. jenny -- 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. handsome, but, yeah. mr. lamb: where do you find yourself having the most fun in the book? ms. millard: during his escape. there is a lot to explain until you get to that part of the story. understanding what was he doing in south africa anyway? when he is on the train and he is 24 years old, he is one of

the few civilians on the train and it's attacked. he immediately takes charge of the defense of the train even though there are lots of soldiers on the train. their commander is right there. he takes charge. everybody listens. they listen to him and they do what he tells them to do. when the train gets away, every man who makes it out alive credits winston church hill for saving their lives. they finally free what is left of the train. half of the train was blocking the tracks. they were able to get the train going while there are bullets. he jumps off because he thinks there are more wounded men.

he realizes that they have already been taken prisoner. he sees two boers and he reaches for his pistol and he realizes that he left it on the train and he was a huge admirer of napoleon and remembered him 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. it was surrounded by a corrugated 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. he wanted to escape and he is miserable. years later, he wrote that he 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. they are not simple plans. 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. he heard these two guys, his friend who had been a commander and another guy who was very

savvy and spoke afrikaans and zulu and he 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 him. they know that he is too talkative, too 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 and churchill says, i am coming and he actually makes it over the wall and they don't.

he left them behind. pretoria, as you saw 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. mr. lamb: this territory is under the sovereignty of what? ms. millard: no, the boers. mr. lamb: how did they could the territory? ms. millard: they took it from 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 a did people know about it yet go ms. millard: even though you think he is just a 24-year-old, he was the son of lord randolph churchill and randolph churchill had actually been in south africa a few years earlier and was hated by the boers because he wrote all of these letters that were published in british

newspapers, excoriating them about some of the actions. 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 humiliated and enraged and they 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. they forced out most of the britons who were living in the area at the time. they only kept a few people that were essential to them. they are bringing up coal. that is obviously running the country and so churchill, when

he is alone and he has nothing, so, his co-conspirators are still in prison. they have the maps, the compass, the food, the plans. he does not speak the language. he has nothing. he just thinks he is going to be 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 than the british, so maybe, i can get them to lend me a but hend a horse realizes that these are the fires from a coalerie. and he stops and realizes that he is taking an incredible chance because all he has been doing is hiding and he is going to step out and he thinks, i

have to, you know? there is no other way. 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 starts to tell him, i am a boer, i fell off a train, and this whole time he's thinking he doesn't speak afrikaans, how am i 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 says, i think i should tell you 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. what did you trust when you are going to your primary source? did winston churchill write about this? what makes you think that he was telling the truth? ms. millard: he wrote it in articles for the morning post. he wrote about the experience in his fantastic autobiography. it is absolutely fascinating, but it wasn't just his work. -- word. john howard -- this other man who helps him get out -- he 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, but one of the greatest leaders in the history of the world. standing there, you can understand his desperation and vulnerability. while 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 african veld -- what is it? ms. millard: it is the terrain of south africa. it is low, flat, sperry terrain area -- terrain. there is not much there. living in kansas, it reminds me of the kansas horizon just goes on forever. mr. lamb: you have three kids. ms. millard: i have two girls and one boy. my oldest daughter has read my first two books. she says she is interested in history. mr. lamb: your husband told you you were a good writer? does he get involved in these books yet have -- does he get

involved with these books? 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 south america and there were a few dodgy situations, it is nice to have him with me. i have three possibilities of people i will write about next but i have a lot of work to do , before i know if any of them are going to work. mr. lamb: 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 candice millard. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] arell duende programs available on our website, or as a podcast at c-span.org.

>> nine sunday on "q&a," michael ramirez. a three-time pulitzer prize winner, talks about his career and his book "give me liberty or nextme obamacare." that is sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific time on c-span. the reviews are in for c-span's," it topped the new york times noteworthy column. archase reviews calls it milepost in the ever-changing reputations of our president. from the new york journal of bucks, the president's makes a fast, engrossing read. read about have noted presidential historians rank the ,est and worst chief executives from george washington to barack obama. explore the life events that

shaped our leaders. the challenges they faced and the legacies they have left the fine. c-span's "the president's," is now available as a hardcover or e-book today. >> c-span "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. monday morning, we will preview the week ahead in washington with stephen nelson and national journal senate reporter zach:. and we will look at the oversight battle between the white house and congress over the mueller report. be sure to watch c-span'sw" live at 7:00 eastern. join the discussion. monday night on the

communicators, we are on capitol hill talking to exhibitors from ces on the hill, an event that gives members of congress and staffers in advance look at new tech products. >> we are in a changing world where technology is moving quickly. so many policies are affected. there is all of this amazing software which will make a difference in how we learn, work, and play. congress needs to be aware of it so they can tackle issues like privacy or other issues involving competitiveness. watch the communicators monday at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. oh, do i look forward to running against them. >>