>> welcome to the program. tonight gina kolata of "the new york times" on dramatic new discoveries about the cause of diseases. >> there are millions of switches for only 20,000 genes. and not only that, the genes, the switches can be on, off, higher, lower, in all different combinations and different cells. so you have just like an incredible array of ways, of very subtly control whack gynes are active and how and what is going on. >> also a look at a new movie called arc trag with richard jarecki, the agenter richard gere and the actress susan sarandon and the actor nate parker. >> when i was in 2008 and reading the paper like everybody else i got smuggled to me like a kleiner perkins or something venture capital report. and on the cover it had a steak and it had a big, you

know, knife going through. and it said it's over. and so i'm reading. i'm like what's over wa, is going on. so i start reading, there was this great stuff in "vanity fair" about the financial crisis. so i read it all. and just just thought, you know, wouldn't it be interesting to get behind the eyes, so to speak of a hedge fund guy who was in desperate hours. and made off-- maddoff had just come out. i call that financial 1.0, a gentler time. and so i thought well it's not maddoff because maddoff i heard from jl said we can't say it on the air, he said forget my victims. okay that is a sociopath and too limited a character to explore. so i went back to the teachings to do a good man who has become corrupted. you know, he read one too many of his own press releases. and down the slope he goes. and he makes that tragic error. >> rose: we conclude this evening with the present of harvard university, drew gilpin faust and the

filmmaker ric burns talking about her book death and the civil war, and his documentary based on the book. >> as i thought about it and i thought about the numbers of civil war dead which had been estimated and talked about by historians for quite some time, it suddenly occurred to me that this number was enormous. and transposed into our own time, as you said at the outset, would represent 2.5% of the population, nearly 7 million dead in our society. so i wanted to understand that. and i wanted to understand how everyone living through that period must have looked at it through the lens of loss and suffering and bereavement. so i began to ask those questions. >> no one had any way of being prepared for the number of deaths. and they struggled with it in a deeply intimate level. how i do believe in god under these circumstances. how i do prepare for my own end. and we also struggled with it collectively. you know what does it mean to be a citizen, what does it mean to be a government who asked citizens to fight

and die in a war over the meaning of citizenship. >> rose: a study of medical discovery, a new movie called as arbitrage "and a look back at the implication of death from the civil war when we continue. funding for charlie rose was provided by the coming coming:-- following:

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. an important discovery that helps us understand the link between genetics and disease. researchers have discovered that parts our dna once dismissed as simply junk is in fact critical for regulating the behavior of our cells, organs and other tissue it is going hald as the biggest leap of genetics since the mapping of the human genome. the findings are the outcome of the incode project launched by the national institute of health in 2003,

a comprehensive international effort involved over 400 scientists who sought to resolve questions left unanswered by the human genome project. joining me now for a closer look at the discovery is gina kolata, a medical reporter for "the new york times". welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: so let's talk about the study first. ten year study. >> right. >> rose: lots of money, lots of people involved. >> that's right. >> rose: they were in search of what? >> they wanted to understand what is actually controlling the genes. so what they realized is that genes are only like 1% of your dna, the actual genes. one guy likes to talk about, out as the 99% that has been ignored and the 1% that gets all the attention. the reason was no one really knew what to make of that 99%. they thought that a lot of-- they thought a portion of it might be important. >> rose: they called it junk. >> they started calling it dark matter. like in the universe, you know, when they say there is this dark matter, we don't know what it is but it's really important. they say we think the stuff might be important. the junk started, that idea

started getting discard. they say it's got to mean something. but they said what is it and what does it do. and so they decided they would have a gyne began particular project. and it was just coordinates all the people was huge, the data analysis was unbelievable. a lot of these people were computer scientists. and they said we have to look at this stuff to the just as a string of dna but as a three dimensional thing which is what dna is. and try to say what's going on here. and how, how is it affecting genes. and for example, they said they knew that there is something must be controlling genes, very specific way because otherwise every cell in your body has the same dna but you have a liver cell, a heart cell, a blood cell, a lung cell. how are they controlled. >> rose: more than that, they found out they now have some understanding of how identical twins one will get a disease and the other will not. >> right. and they said that is... their genes are pretty much identical. genes don't change as much

as this other stuff does. and the other things can be affected by, is very easily by environment, by something you were exposed to or by something maybe that you did that could change some of the chemicals that are attacked to the other parts of the dna. so they said this can start explaining a lot of the things that they didn't understand before. like why is it even that traits like height, seem to be so strongly inherited. why can't they find a height gene, because it's not the gene, it's the thing that controls other genes. this dark matter. >> rose: a regulator or switch. >> they call them switches. they said there are millions of switches for only 20,000 genes. and not only that, the genes, the switches be on, off, higher, lower. and in all different combinations. in different cells. so you have just like an incredible array of ways, of very subtly controlling what genes are active and how and what is going on. >> rose: somebody described thises alike a google map in which you see from a far distance earth. and that's what we knew and now we are able to look at

hoy ways and stops and all kinds of things that have become visible because of this discovery. >> and they say it's going to be incredibly important now as they start to, as they start to do what they call whole genome sequencing. they are doing it now in cancer in particular. they say let's not just look at the genes in a cancer cell. let's look at the entire stretch of dna and say what's macking this cell grow. often they will see thousands of changes in this dark matter. and they say which ones are important. and how do we know what they are. and what this end code project is doing is it is starting to map things it is starting to give you this road map. they say if you see a change here these are the genes it may be affecting and this is how it may effect them. >> there was a concerted effort by a whole number of countries and number of institutions. >> that's right. >> rose: around the world. >> but it was funded by the national institutes of health. but they got all the best people in the world involved in it. >> rose: yeah. this is a big deal. >> it is a big deal, yeah. >> rose: understanding disease, how is disease

turned on in a human body. >> that's right t is a huge deal. because before this they if you only look at the genes you get a very discourted picture of what is going on. because you have to turn genes on and off and up and down. in fact the last time i was here with you there was a guy named lucas wartman. and he had had this whole genome sequencing for his leukemia. and what they found was that one gene was kind of in overdrive. but why was that gene in overdrive, probably because something in the dark matter was turning it on and making it make way too much. and when they found that they had a drug that could turn that gene down, and then they could control his cancer. but it was not-- the gene was normal it was perfectly fine but something in the dark matter was, a switch was on. it was in the on position. and wouldn't turn off. >> rose: and what caused that switch to do that? >> a cancer mutation, in the cancer itself. no not in the gene but you can mew tate the dark matter too. he had a mutation in his dark matter. >> rose: so if you have a mew days in the dark mat ter

will affect what happens in the gene and what happens in the genes determines whether you get a disease like lieu camia. >> they called it the driver for his leukemia. >> rose: what we hope to come out of this, and this takes years, is some way to eliminate and minimize the affect that these regulators and switches have on the genes that will produce. >> that's right. absolutely. that gives you a lot of new drug targets. it tells you, when you see something like in lucas's case where you see a gene in overdrive, if you find the switch you can say we don't have to go after the gene, we can go after the switch. we can affect that switch because it's not working right so that gives you a wol different way of looking at diseases. >> rose: and how long will it take to be able to see the man fess case-- manifestation of this? >> it depends on what disease and what gene. i spoke to a guy that studies prostate cancer and he said this immediately helps them when they start to look at people's prostate cancer dna. >> rose: right. >> to start asking themselves what parts of the dark matter that are already

identified in this end code project are important in making some of these cancers grow. so he feels that this will give them new targets within, you know, very soon, within a few years. and actually start making some progress on some prostate cancers. but other things will take longer i'm sure. >> rose: eric landeau is well-known and has been on this program many times and has made many public appearances. he said this is a stunning resource. my head explodes at the amount of data. someone else said that the human dna is a lot more active than we expected, and there are a lot more things happening than we expected. that was from you and bernie of the european molecular biology laboratory, european bio-- institute. it's a bit like this whole international collection of brainpower has been put on -- >> that's right. >> rose: and it took him ten years to come to this result. >> and it only, they really needed a lot of the technological advances that went on along the way.

and even the data processing advances. because they had so much data. and what they discovered were not just switches, that they discovered that pieces of dna that they thought were like fossils, dead genes that had sort of been carried along but they were dead, actually were being reopro sesed and used for other reasons. they were finding that that is what he pent by a lot more active. it wasn't just turning genes on and off it was all sorts of little control things in there in areas where they said there's nothing going on. this is a dead gene. >> rose: to continue your article, the discoveries also can reveal which genetic changes are important in cancer and why. as they begin determining the dna sequence of cancer cells, researchers realize that most of the thousands of dna changes in cancer cells were not in genes. >> that's right. >> rose: but are in dark matter. >> that's right. it's kind of amazing, isn't it. it really gives him a whole new vista and whole new resource to try to understand things. >> rose: here is what is stunning for me. it is how much we are

learning that we didn't know about the way the human body goes about determining disease and determining who we are and how we are. we just are tapping into the extraordinary understanding. >> i think this is an amazing time. and i think this is just the beginning of it. i mean i just feel privileged to be able to report on this as it's happening. it's just a sea change really in what people can see and do and understand. >> rose: and like so many other things, you know, once you make a discovery like this you can pour more iq and more money into it, and produce results you never imagined. >> well this project is continuing. there's more to learn about the dark matter. and there's more projects coming along. and they have other projects which are just also kind of awesome. they are doing, taking common cancers now and they're going at them from every direction. they did colon cancer, they just did lung cancer, breast

cancer is coming up. what they are doing is getting cancer cells from lots of patients. they are doing whole genome sequencing, all the dna, looking at the genes, looking at everything, and they're saying what are the most important changes. and how can we attack them and how can we understand these diseases in a way we never did before. that's amazing too. >> rose: let me know as soon as you hear something. >> i will. >> rose: gina kolata from the no times this is an important story and we're so pleased to you have come here. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: and help us understand it. back in a moment, stay with us. rdz the world of high finance has long fascinated film makers and audiences, from the movies wall street and margin call, the documentary inside job all tell the story of greed and economic ruin and rich people. now nicholas jarecki brings up his view of wall street billionaire teetering on the brink of financial collapse. and here is the trailer for his film" arbitrage ". >> a dedicated businessman,

family man, a man i am very lucky to call my mentor an my father. >> world events all resolve around five things, m-o-n-e-y. >> why sell our company, we make a great return. >> how much money do we need, do you want to be the richest guy in the cemetery. >> jimmy, it's me. >> you want to tell me what this is. >> the carrolled, her feet are in the air. >> who kicked out the door. >> the situation would be -- >> what would you advise such a person to do? >> it's about 50 things that person wouldn't have thought of. >> fingerprints, dna. cell phone records. >> if that person were

closing a merger with a large bank any arrest could derail the transaction. >> half of the funds assets are missing. >> there is a $400 million hole here. >> that's ridiculous. >> you're looking at a thousand years jail time. >> what am i supposed to do? >> we haven't located the driver. >> the driver. >> yeah, someone else was driving. >> what happened to your hit. >> i head it on the medicine cabinet. >> i hate when that happens. >> directive buyer, this is about your husband. >> fine, make an appointment. >> tell me what's happening. >> he's my dad. i have to trust him. >> this is a homicide. >> i know you went to pick him up. >> the more time that passed, the more time. >> did you want me to let our investors go bankrupt. >> you lied. >> we were going broke. >> the police have been trying to talk to me rand i'm not going to lie for you. >> the guy did it. he does not get to walk just because he is on cnbc.

>> i am your partner. >> are you not my partner. you work for me. >> you brought this to our door. >> everything i do is for us, for this family. now are you telling me how to run my business. >> this isn't about your business, this is our life. >> rose: joining me now is the director nicholas jarecki and three of the film's stars, the man who was speaking, richard gere, susan sarandon and nate parker. welcome to all. tell me what you set out to do and who these characters are. and what they represent. >> well, the genesis was i was-- i have two loves my whole life, computers and movies. and so first i was in the computer business and was a hacker. and my about venture capital and things like that. and also my parents were commodities traders, are commodities traders so i knew that world. and i also knew i wanted to make my first feature film. and so i had a long time ago written a book about movie directors called breaking and how 20 film directors got their start. they told me you got to write a script that is

something you know, something personal and where you can bring your own voice to it that nobody else can. and so when i was in 2008 and i was reading the paper like everybody else, i i got smuggled to me like a kleiner perkins or something, venture capital report. and ot cover it had a steak and it had a big, you know, knife going through. and it said it's over. and so i am reading it, i'm like what's over, what is going on. why is... so i start reading there was this great stuff in "vanity fair" about the financial crisis. and so i read it all. and just thought, you know, wouldn't it be interesting to get behind the eyes, so to speak of a hedge fund guy who was in desperate hours. and maddoff had just come count, you know, i call that like financial 1.0, a ghenter-- gentler time. and i thought well it's not maddoff because maddoff i have heard from jl he said we can't say it on the air but he said forget my victims. so i thought okay that's a sociopath and too limited a character to explore. so i went back to the-- to

do a good man who has become corrupted. you know, he has read one too many of his own press releases. and down the slope he goes. and he makes that tragic error. and then you know, one lie begets another. >> rose: so far it's about financement but what this movie is about in part is how man deals with the covering up a crime. >> i think that's the brilliance of his screen play if i can jump in, is he used-- why are you doing that. i haven't seen new years, why are you doing that. >> rose: i adore you. you're my friend. >> what he did is he did atop what can be perceived as a topical movie about our world and finance. but he made it equally or more so about people and about this family structure. >> rose: yeah. >> and friend structure. and extended family structure with histories. >> rose: that is an interesting part of it. i mean the thing that is most interesting to me is not the relationship with the wife, by the way. >> it's not? >> rose: no, it's not, it's a relationship between these two, don't agree.

>> i wish i had a relationship with him in the movie, that's exactly right. >> rose: exactly, the character he plays in the movie. so tell me about that, the relationships in the movie. start with miss miller. >> that came really early on. you know, writing i don't write fastment it takes me a long time. but the burst of an idea came in two days so i started writing the treatment and i thought okay, it's one thing to have this hedge fund master. but you know, you need a foil, someone without can really speak truth to power who is like not in his pocket like all the other characters in the movie. and i just saw the idea of this young black kid from harlem who is kind of like an entrepreneur. in the beginning when i was writing if it was like a woody allen 50/50 so we're cutting back and forth. ultimately i fused it together but i just thought we have to have this other voice, who can talk to him and say what are you doing, man, this is not okay. to put me in this position. so that came really early on. and then it was a question of developing that

relationship. and seeing where the blood ties could be. you know, i spoke to he rest ot el before and-- . >> rose: you spoke to arist ot el. >> to what he wrote. >> i was there, you heard it. >> you know, hey, he said, you know, that's what are you supposed to do, brother kills brother. >> rose: right. >> shakespeare with kings. >> rose: all the classics. >> get in there and really stir it up with the people who know each other. because that's what we can relate to. >> rose: so what is the relationship between your character and richard's character. >> well, on the surface he worked, my father worked for him, of course. i was someone that came up and you know stood under the shade of the tree of his finances in terms of helping him get into school. my father passed away. he was there and helped me out. so it has been a long time since the funeral and i haven't heard from him. so it's interesting because when he calls me, and you know what happens, underneath the surface is this idea of survival versus loyalty. when you come from, you know, underappreciated community and where things are limited

and you don't have all these resources, there are very few things that really resonate. one is family. the other is loyalty. and so that is kind of where i am able to meet him at that crossroad and say okay, i want to survive, yes. everything i have done has been for survival. and now i've made it out and am about to go and buy a restaurant. but the irony is i am drug into that situation. >> out of loyalty. i am made complicity by him in this situation. >> okay so, there is an accident. your girlfriend is killed in the accident. you have to figure out what to do. >> are you going to tell the whole story. >> that is not even close to telling. we just saw in the trailer a car tumbling over and over and over. >> one of the interesting things is you were talking. and it always struck me, we never talked about it. he recognizes my voice on the phone. >> that's exactly-- and like that, and we talked about how many years has it been since we engaged... but he recognizes my voice like that. which is what blood does. there is something that is really blood connected with

us. and i thinks that a lot of the power again extended family. it's, you are in my sphere of care. >> you know a lot of wealthy people in the script that said that his father was his limousine driver. and so there's a lot of people in new york, limousines. and that's a very close relationship, you know, that developments. so i sort of saw the character. >> spent a lot of time together. >> came by the house with kiss hid-- his kids maybe on the weekend once in a while. so it developed. he has as nate said a paternal but maybe even a pat armistic streak with all the characters. so come by the country house, bring your children. but then i think nate's character in the film is kind of a special guy. so i could see how robert miller would have taken an interest in him. >> and don't you think his father kept his secrets? i mean he must have known we are was going and not going. >> absolutely. >> he was in the car. he heard every phone call. >> rose: so there is also this. your relationship to him and your relationship to the daughter, and the daughter's relationship, elaborate on

that. >> we had been married a long time, started when we didn't have so much. and i mean they have a full life. they've got two kids. the daughter is obviously a little bit more together than the son. she works for him. and i don't want to give too much away. >> rose: we have to set it up to talk about it. >> well, you know, they have beening to many years. and so things shift and she knows that there is some fooling around going on. and she's kind of looked the other way, kept the family together. i don't think they discussed it. she has her own life, she is a philanthropist, she has a businessment and now she's ready. she says, you know, let's start having fun again. let's give him an option. she says you know, dow want to be the richest guy in the cemetery or do you let's go, remember what it's like to go to italy and have a good time. let's still play a little bit. but these guys get, you know, completely addicted to power. it's not just the money. it's the game of wall street that is really addictive.

>> rose: i want to see two scenes that illustrate both of the points we have been talking about. one this is where robert miller played by richard and ellen his wife played by susan have a conversation. here it is. >> did you tell her everything? >> yeah, yes. >> everything. >> lift up your shirt. >> what? >> lift up your shirt. >> did you tell her about this? >> ellen, i don't know what you think you know. >> don't treat me like an idiot am you have been sneaking off to see her for months. don't you think i know that i never cared, really, about your secretaries, your gallerists, your whores, whatever want to call them. i cared about our home. and now you have brought

this to our door. >> i did what was necessary. >> rose: so you did what was necessary for you, robert, for your interests. >> for my interests? >> yes. >> everything i do is for us, for this family. now are you telling me how to run my business. >> this isn't about your business, this is our life. where do you think we're going tonight? what do you think i have tolerated all of this for so long. >> you tolerated. wow. >> i'm glad you find that funny. >> what about me? what about me? what about the complaints, the unhappiness, the drinking, the shopping, the trainers, everything. but yes, the charities. the wonderful sainted charities, you know, all the wonderful things that you do. how do you think i pay for them. >> i didn't ask you because i didn't want you to lie. but i forgot -- >> because you didn't want to give them up. >> we had an understanding and you broke that understanding when you brought brook into it, when you... when you made brook complicity, when you risked her future and i'm done. >> rose: the two of you had to shoot that scene at this

moment would you shoot it differently? would you play it differently? did you see anything that you said well, if i could that do that over. >> i would have the camera on me more. >> it's funny, i was thinking exactly the same thing. no, but there are two really good scenes in this movie between us, i like them a lot. the earlier one where it is kind of business as usual, it's husband and wife, he's going off to do --... also. >> his mistress. >> am i, mi doing the deal. and you want the money for the hospital. but it's --... we see them having figured out how to play with each other. we get history in the scene. there is some fun in the scene. there's some wisdom in the scene. it's how two people do coexist with each other after a long time. >> rose: in the end do they want to be together but they want to have freedom or do they in a sense are simply together because... .

>> you're going start an argue on where you don't agree on what happens afterwards. >> rose: tell me. >> we don't agree. i'm not completely sure. i think that he maybe... . >> rose: what? >> because, well, i don't want to say what happens but i think that he sees her in a different way because of what comes down in the scene. >> rose: the wife. >> right, but what happens after that, i think she definitely goes flew with what she says but i don't know what happens after that. i don't think she's just bluffing. >> rose: let me look at another scene. >> you hope she's just bluffing. >> nobody gives that up. nobody gives it up. >> rose: nobody gives up what. >> oh, so are you saying he would put up a bigger fight. >> that kind of a life. nobody gives it up. >> oh no-- . >> rose: in other words, mr. miller is to the going italy. >> yeah, he's fine going to italy, that's fine. >> rose: what he is to the going give up. >> she's not going to give it up. >> rose: i see. >> i don't have to give it up. >> rose: she's not walking out. >> i don't mind leaving new york, oh, no, i'm sorry, i

disagree. >> what is it. >> look at the clintons, strong woman. >> please don't make me look at the clintons. >> rose: why. >> please don't. >> because they are in politics, you have already given up your soul if are you in politics, sorry. i don't agree with that. >> they were friends long before they acted. >> i'm sure. >> we were never friended and we're not going -- >> i think they had apartments next to each other with connect terraces. >> this off fifth avenue. >> some kind of psychological reaction. >> it's just a guy, just a guy reaction. >> rose: let me bring in nate parker here. take a look at this scene. >> we are just going to be a package deal for the rest of our long career. >> rose: here's the scene, nate parker is in it. take a look. >> you told me earl was going to make this right. >> rob, you knew i care but and all the things you did for us, for my father. for earl said to offer me a deal no charges at all, i

walk away. i just want to know who i went to pick up. why are you putting me in this situation, man? why are you putting me in this position? >> can you just hang tight? can you do that? just a little longer. >> all right. earl said the deal's on the table for 24 hours. after that, they are going to file a case. earl says we're going to lose. >> just hang with me a little bit. >> it was intense, you know. it's something like you said, it's about family there are certain things you don't do you know what i mean. there is very little nepotism where i come from, where that character comes from. you don't inherit much.

every generation starts at zero, you know, so all you have is your family, that's it. and it's funny because its... outside of that, i don't care about the money. i don't know if it was ever about the money for my character. for me it was like why would you do this. why would you tell my father that you take care of me. now i'm the only one that has anything to lose, more than anyone else, it's me. >> rose: why would he do it, richard? your character? >> there was a guy that we met in stock exchange, he was about 80 years old. >> i do remember. >> and he was glowing he just was like a kid and i started talk to him. i said how long you have been here. he said i've been here since i was 17 years old i said what is it. he said i just can't imagine doing anything else. this is where it is all happening. it's all happening here. and what i remember is that,

it's all happening here but he's so, the center of the university is him more than in most people. we all, you know, we're not saints. human beings function that way. this is a guy who is literally the center of the universe, sees everyone, at one point i improvised and said everyone works for me. he sees that. >> rose: you say that to the daughter. >> he see it is that way. he works for him. of course can serve him. will take it, take two years, you know, four years, he'll be fine but he's serving a greater cause which is this incredibly megalo maniac vision of the world. >> rose: so what is the morality tale here? >> well, the morality tale, you know, i'm with harry cone who said a long time ago if you want to send a message call western union. so for me you know it's just an entertainment, what is entertaining, i think, is the identification week we can have with a flawed character.

to see those things in ourselve that we don't like. richard talked about, you know, his need like a shark to keep swimming. it's confronting what is on the other side of that, the abyss, the existential despair that i think this character feels and that a lot of the money people feel. take it away, what's left. so he's created that autocratic personality. and but we all do that no matter what we have. >> isn't it just that the ends justify the means. you can rationalize, you are taking way jobs, the family. you have to do all these things to keep everything going. but is there an absolute right or wrong. and does anybody do it, you know. >> when we were making the movie we did a month of rehearsal in various forms and we said one of the things people doing the wrong things for the right reason. >> yeah. >> and i like that term of it. >> the loyalty here, family here company here. >> he is a patriarch. all these people eat at his

table. >> rose: here's what is centring about this movie too, is the character development. and here in an interesting scene that reminded me almost of the late gore i have dahl playing the senator in a movie that got lots of praise for him. here is gradeen carter who is the other half of a deal that richard is makingment and they're having a conversation about it. here it is. >> let's just calm down. >> you know what we are going to do. we are going to put out a press release immediately today and say there is no deal. there never was a deal. you are not going to be buying-- you are are not going to be buying quantum, you're to the going to be buying anything. you, you're just a browser. me, i'm going to continue to enjoy my easternings. and while i soar on princely wings to my next winning enterprise, your shares are going to drop another couple bucks based on a failed acquisition attempt. bodes well for your tenure, doesn't it.

>> your price is too high. >> you have a nice day. >> 400. >> 550. >> 450. >> 525, that's it, yes or not, its it's no, that is any further communications goes right in my trash can. >> a deal. >> a pretty good performance which i they he was direct. >> he is like that old 40s kind of character acker, bogart movie you could see him way cigarette dangling. >> but it was also a comfort level, here is him sitting in a restaurant, in a booth, you know. >> like he created it. >> newspaper, its he an easy situation for him, but he was terrific. >> thank you, nate, thank you. >> thank you very much. >> susan, richard, back in a moment. stay with us. an estimated 750,000 soldiers nearly 2.5 percent of the american population

died during the american civil war. it remains this country's deadliest conflict. the war also forever changed the way this country thinks about and copes with death. the new pbs american experience film called death and the civil war considers this conflict and its lasting impact. here is a look at the film. >> on the evening of may 10th, 1864, as the civil war ground on into hts fourth straight year, 26-year-old james robert montgomerie, a private in the confederate signal corps were in virginia wrote a letter to his father back home in camden, mississippi. dripping blood on the paper as he wrote, from the horrific shoulder wound he had sustained a few hours earlier.

>> dear father, this is my last letter to you. i have been struck by a piece of shell and my right shoulder is horribly mangled. and i know death is inevitable. i am very weak but i write to you because i know you would be delighted to read a word from your dying son. i know death is near, that i will die far from home, and friends of my early youth. but i have friends here too who are kind to me. my friend fairfax will write you at my request and give you the particulars of my death. my grave will be marked so that you may visit it if you desire to do so. it is optionary with you whether you let my remains rest here or in mississippi.

i would like to rest in the graveyard with my dear mother and brothers, but it's a matter of minor importance. give me love to all my friends, my strength fails me. my horse and my equipment will be left for you. again, a long farewell to you. may we meet in heaven. your dying son, jr montgomerie. >> james montgomerie's friend fairfax did write soon thereafter. forwarding some of his effects and assuring his father that he had been conscious to the end. and that he had died at peace with himself and his maker. but it was little consolation.

though the grave had been marked, the family was never able to find it, and were thus never able to realize their fond hope of bringing their dead son home. >> rose: the documentary was inspired by 29008 book by harvard university pret drew gilpin faust, the republic of suffering, death and the civil war. she joins me along with the films writer and director ric burns and i'm very pleased to have both of them, welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: what lead you to write this? >> i am a historian. and i had been writing about the american south and then about the civil war for a number of years when i undertook a project on confederate women in the civil war south. and when i read their diaries and letters i was struck by how much of their attention was focused on death, on loved ones they feared would be killed in the war, on loved one who were killed in the war or on the mourning that followed the loss of people in their families.

and as i thought about it, and i thought about the numbers of civil war dead which had been estimated and talked about by historians for quite some time, it suddenly occurred to me that this number was enormous. and transposed into our own time, as you said at the outset, would represent 2.5% of the population, nearly 7 million dead in our society. so i wanted to understand that. and i wanted to understand how everyone living through that period must have looked at it through the lens of loss and suffering and bereavement. so i began to ask those questions. >> rose: we are reminded once again that coming out of the civil war and perhaps all wars, but because of the civil war series that you and ken did, you know, gave us an understanding of the el consequence about these basic human issue issues because it was so raw, and real and present. >> that seems to go right to the heart of it, charlie. i mean it really is a time when we did go right to the

heart of things. i mean those deaths, 750,000 now estimated casualties took america right down to the ben. and transformed us entirely in four years, in a fast period of time. and yet to have that record, that eloquent, eloquent record of soldiers on the line, of mothers and sisters and wives back home, of politicians that also, you know, people in the u.s. sanitary commission trying to struggle with a new reality. i mean this was something entirely new. no one had any way of being prepared for the number of deaths. they struggled with it in a deeply intimate level. how do i believe in god under these circumstances. how i do prepare for my own end. and we also struggled with it collectively. what does it mean to be a citizen wa, does it mean to be a government who asked citizens to fight and die in a war over the meaning of citizenship. and at the same time to have this kind of extraordinarily articulate passionately sensitive and articulate population of people.

you know, from the smallest person on the battleground to abraham lincoln, an amazing record. and it revisit again for me, after 20, 25 years since ken and i worked on the war t was uncanningly-- to do so and see it under drew's lens, she has taken a subject about which there are 670,000 books on the book shelf, and she-- 60,000 books and said something new about what is the most obvious thing about war, that war equal-- equals death. >> rose: and when you read it did you say to yourself i'm a filmmaker and this is a film and i better get on it right now. >> a wonderful colleague at mine at wgbh in boston read the book and he was floored. i don't know this, we don't know the burial movement, the impact this had at every level, policy, religion, the demographics. i mean there were many more women in the south after the war. women began marrying at an older age. men began marrying at a younger age because of the death and war. in myriad ways the entire

society was transformed. he asked me to do the film. and i was so thrilled to do so. because at its core what it does is it brings you closer than anything i know to the experience of what it was like to be in that society at that time. at a moment where recognizeably we are coming up to the an verse of-- in a few days, september 17th, 186 -- the ses we centennial, arguably the moment of all moments when death changed america and out of which something tremendously positive and creative began to come from this experience, this bloodbath. >> rose: which was? >> many things. i think it created recognizeably a modern sense of what government owes to its people. you can't look, you can't find a revolutionary war cemetery. we didn't have cemeteries until the civil war. we did not notify next of kin. we did not keep track of the biographies of soldiers. we did not bury the dead in any formal way. that sense that the most sack ed -- sacred duty of sense is to the men and women that fight and die in his name, something that

emerged out of the chaos and sorrow and grief of the civil war. today we spend as vincent brown points out in our film, the historian, 100 million every year looking for the mia frs world war ii, korea and the vietnam war. every american red and blew assumed that that is the right thing to do. that wasn't the case before the civil war. that sense that government owes something to the living, owes something to the dead, that only a government can bury, can create an articleton cemetery or a cemetery at getties burg so it was powerful sense. we became recognizeably the country we are today. arguably you could say the transformation took place exactly 150 years ago as the sheer number of bodies that were being generated began to shift. policy, military strategy, and what lincoln would call in the getties burg address a sense of what the necessary new birth of freedom was going to be which involve that we take from these honored dead those bodies we are putting in the ground at the getties burg cemetery.

the first federal cemetery. we take increased devotion to the cause of a democratic re7ic. >> from a person, from individuals to the enormity of the toll we said 2.5% of the population, here's that part from the documentary. >> the unimaginable scale of the slaughter, the sheer numbers of the dead, would be all be but impossible to comprehend. nearly 2.5% of the population would die in the conflict. an estimated 750,000 people in all. more than in all other american wars combined. never before and never since have so many americans died in any war by any measure or reckoning. transposed percentage of dead add mid 19th century america face mood our own time, 7 million dead if we had the same percentage. what would we as a nation today be like if we faced

the loss of 7 million individuals. and so it invaded just about every one's life in one way or another. >> rose: as you have said, this went to the notion of good and bad. >> the civil war took place in mid 19th century america in a culture that was very much defined by a set of victorian values that clustered around the home, the value as a family. the importance of dying at home. and a good death involved a series of assumptions about how a death defined a life, that one's last moments and last words kind of he pid myed that life and predicted what was likely to happen to that person in the afterlife. so it was expected that a person would i do surrounded by loved ones in the bosom of the family, would talk about their preparation and readiness for death. their commitment to a religious identity. their expectations of a life beyond. and of course the civil war

completely disrupted this. soldiers died away from home, apart from family. they died suddenly, they died at ages where they weren't usually prepared or expecting to die. and so much of the response to death in the civil war era was trying to hold on to the essential human values that were expressed through the notions of a good death. and replicate them somehow in the context of the battlefield. it might be nurses surrounding a soldier in a military hospital. trying to reassure him here his last words, promise to transmit them to loved ones. condolence letters which tried to tell family, the particulars of the death that they would have wanted to witness but could not because they were separated from their sons or brothers or husbands rdz was there a difference between the north and the south? >> in terms in the belief in a good death. >> rose: yeah. >> this was a broadly shared understanding of what death ought to be like. but there were sharp

differences between north and south and the impact of the war on the south, everything was much harder for the south. much of it was fought within the south, the resources it in the south were not as extensive as the north so this act of improvisation often took more effort to try to communicate and transmit. what i find so striking about it is human beings commitment to transcending circumstance in pursuit of what matters most, and trying to replicate customs and practices that were so essential to their understanding of themselves as human beings in conditions that were just unthinkable. >> rose: what was the biggest challenge for you here? >> i think to creating a narrative out of this. and also tapping into what is the most redeeming part of it. i mean there's not, it's the subject on the service of it is profoundly sorrowful and depressing but deep within it is the fact that the subject throws into very sharp relief what makes people human.

what makes, what the values are that really bind them together. the poet undertaker tom lynch who we interviewed in the film has said you see in the civil war what he called humanity 101, how striving under these horrific circumstances drew has described, how people tried to reassemble and take care and connect themselves back. how they tried to get home. how they tried to help each other get home. frequently just bringing the bad news of the friend who had died or the stranger who had died next to them on the battlefield and to know it was a kindness they wished to have extended to them so they were going to extend to somebody else. all these ways from the most simple kind of sort of improvisation of camaraderie on the battlefield to improvisations that took place institutionally as groups began to say something has to do, we have to do something more than the government is able to do to provide for these men and women. organizations north and south. the u.s. san tore commission. the u.s. christian commission saying you know what, we have to bring medical supplies, clara

barton is part of this story swrechlt to bring medical supplies, bear the bad news home, notify next of kin. all sorts of things that were not done. simple, humanitarian acts that had not been done by the united states government or the government of the confederacy. so what i find so uplifting about it is watching as drew was saying this response which is profoundly human and speaks to what we all have inside ourselves. the desire to find something larger. not just in a beyond but a larger here and now. some larger sense of identity. some value in the real world that's beyond our own immediate reach. and you see that in a profound way in the civil war, the battlefields. >> rose: we have talked about some other battles. the get sees berg address said what about this? >> well, the get sees berg address read in the context of this understanding of death takes on a particular force in that what lincoln is really trying to do is

say what are all these deaths for. and how do they redefine who we are as a people. these people who died that a nation might live so their deaths are the source of a nation's survival. that ties the nation so tightly to the sacrifice. but then he also talks about what the united states is for. and what the sacrifice is for. and what we use these deaths for. what will make them not have been deaths that have happened in vain. and that's the commitment to the notion that we are consecrated to an ideal and that this more is about a very large purpose which is of the human freedom that the american experiment was meant to embody. and so it takes us to the cause of he man's facial-- emancipation it takes us to the broader cause of citizenship. and i think that death and the treatment of the dead and transformation of the

treatment of the dead are part and parcel of a new attitude about citizenship it comes in emancipation, of course. but it also comes in what the nation owes to human beings who have rights as citizens in death as well as in life. >> rose: i want to go to this final clip but i read before that the last part of this book called, which is surviving but even as the civil war brought new humanity, in the manage of death so too it introduced a level of carnage that foreshadowed the wars of the century to come even as individuals and their fates assume new circumstances, so those individuals threatened to disappear not bureaucracy and mass slaughter of modern warfare. we still struggle to understand how to preserve our humanity and ourselves within such a world. we still seek to use our death to create meaning where we are not sure any exists. the civil war generation glimless the fear that still defines us, the sense that death is the only end. we still work to live with the riddle that they, the civil war dead and their survivors are like and to

solve so long ago. thank you for coming. and for this film. here is the last segment we show to you. this is the impact of the battle of gettysburg on the way that the dead is honored. it is also remind all of you watching at this moment that this civil war death and the civil war premiers on public television on tuesday september 18th. here is the scene about getty burs. >> something new in the american experience would now begin to arise from the fields of gettysburg. as in the days, weeks and months following the battle, the tiny pennsylvania town now became the setting for one of the greatest collective efforts to honor the dead in the thinks ree-- history of the republic. >> though no formal policy or appropriation for burying the dead would emerge during the war itself, the year before congress had passed measures giving the president and the war

department the power to purchase land at near battlefields, as circumstances and public health concerns dick state-- dictated. often adjacent to the overflowing military hospitals. but the burial ground that now began to take shape south of getties burg, one of five federal military cemeteries created during the war for the dead of a particular battle would go far beyond the practical needs of disposing of dead bodies. not long after the battle, with financial help from every state in the union that had lost men in the engagement, a local lawyer named david wills oversaw the purchase of 17 acres in the town which were soon taken over by the federal government. in october crat contracts were left for the reburial of union soldiers on the new ground, at the rate of $1.59 for each body.

one month later, in november 1863, the host of dignitaries from boston, philadelphia and washington including president lincoln himself journeyed to getty burg to dedicate the new soldiers national cemetery there. lincoln's brief but soaring remarks like the new burial ground itself with its rows of identical graves radiating sim etically and democratically around the cemetery's central focus marked a seismic shift in governmental attitude and policy towards the dead. one that said that the dead were no longer simply the responsibility of their families, that they and their loss and their meaning belonged to the nation.

captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders: age by bloomberg a procedure are of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> be more.