lincoln. rather than serenely reigning, she found her parlor teeming with rivals. mary had worked hard during her husband's first presidential campaign in the summer 1860. she made a favorable impression on john scripps, editor of the tribune, who suggested that the lincolns were not the country bump kins the eastern establishment might expect especially as lincoln's wife was really educated, french speaking, an aristocratic daughter of the bluegrass. a new york herald reporter suggested lincoln's springfield resident resembled longfellow's abode in cambridge. another credited lincoln's wife who was an amiable and accomplished lady. these reports were meant to reassure voters along the eastern seaboard that they hadn't really had a wild westerner for a candidate. after lincoln's victory at the ballot box, he had an uphill battle when he arrived in washington, d.c. while the president-elect worked to organize his government, mary launched her own campaigns hosting family and friends greeting diplomats and statesmen, anticipating her new set of duties, and she sought to m

when you look at the box on the left, the major and his wife and is that mary todd lincoln? >> yes. >> i go to filmmaking techniques here area the close-up, the cross cutting. this was revolutionary in a way. it used to be you put a camera down and had actors sort of performing in front of them. >> the stage and here comes the assassination. >> shifting points of view. >> john wilkes boothe jumping onto the stage. off he goes. >> cutting between perspectives, close-ups. the camera happens to be there and the narrative. >> it looks like ford theater does. >> yeah, photographs. back in 1915, the audience was spellbound viewing this. and the music, you can hear the music. it was really important to griffith. >> you said in your book, in boston there was a 40-piece orchestra. >> about 28-piece and in some places 40-piece. >> a 40 piece and the theater? >> to create the magic of it. the ushers would be dressed in period pieces. the audience were given programs for the movie which would start in 20 mins or so. >> how many people acted in the movie? >> i do not have an accurate cou

lincoln cottage where lincoln played checkers with his son, tad it was here in my opinion at least that the outcome of the war became inevitable. in the summer of 1862 according to mary todd lincoln was always a chronic insomnia slept hardly at all. he took late-night rambles around the soldiers home property which is just good declared a national cemetery. and, of course, there he saw the fresh graves of the boys that he sent to war. the site helped galvanize him draft emancipation proclamation. and that document was again, in my opinion but we like today to call the tipping point. for the first time it established that for both the north and south this was a war about slavery. the proclamation also meant the south could not get national recognition from great britain or france which became a moral imperative for them to resist the south. so with no help coming from those quarters, the out i would argue was that the south could not win. there are also those who disagree and i think it's a very worthy argument, i found inviting every book that it's an opportunity to go back to school, and certainly this one was no exception. the biggest lesson i learned was that just

lincoln returned in one piece to springfield and a few weeks later abraham and mary were married. all things leaked to the press. >> good evening carol. my question is lincoln's wiliness in the election of 1864 dangling possible cabinet positions, greeley as postmaster general and minister to france. would he like to speak to those? >> sure. i didn't go though much of the postmaster general shepperd really because i really don't think there's any evidence that could have happened that could've been in the same room even after niagara falls. for the flirtation with james gordon bennett lincoln had made an effort to neutralize james gordon bennett in 1860. he had an emissary from alibi politics visit him in new york and that said i don't think he is a bad guy but i think he had terrible people around him. the first time there is a fugitive slave that he has to catch you will be all over him and he will be erratic when i woke before him and in 1864 lincoln wants to neutralize bennett the most powerful and widely read newspaper in the country not just in new york but again that nationa

mary todd lincoln, abraham lincoln's wife had several brothers who were confederate officers. jeb stuart, cavalry commander his father-in-law was the union officer. in a letter dated 1862 from tennessee, john boston 80 first ohio infantry, expresses his outrage at his wife's pro-southern father. i think it is a curious thing why your father does not write to you or me. i think their patriotism is not very strong, otherwise he would write. but he does not care one grain if you were dead or alive, and he would rather hear of my death and my coming home. he is afraid to hear cannons roar and rifles crash, for here -- fear that it would break his copperhead bones. he is mad at me for volunteering to serve my country. he would rather hang around the birds nest, then to leave and fight to protect the family. but let the poor devil go for the time being. if i should be so lucky as to come home, i will give him a soldier's blessing, and that will be a rough was satan you may -- a rough blessing, you may be sure. there is a day when he will pay for all of this. john boston, enlisted 18

they seem to have gotten along very well with lincoln. mary kept firing them.he point is, he knew some black people, not a lot. you know that 90,000 document cash of letters. there is a little handful of black people. he knows a few. it is worth 20 out that every black person who could be taught to. johnson was dead, of course. billy gave some interviews. they all formally said that he was a kind man, did not seem to have any racial prejudice, and i like him. there was no black person that knew him and said, he is a bigot. his other chosen profession was a politician. this goes back to the part that we are talking about a while ago. he is running for office as a state legislator in 1858 against stephen douglas. he is very outspoken in his antislavery views. he becomes a one issue politician. all he talks about in the 1850's was the danger of slavery. he is running primarily against stephen douglas. stephen douglas was to be perfectly blunt __ and unabashed, enthusiastic race baiting white supremacist. i'm not being mean. i'm being accurate. stephen douglas knew

lincoln. it doesn't even look like him right? his hair is combed. when did that happen? don't you figure marystanding right offstage with the brush? he looks cleaned up, ok? i kind of like that. it gives you the counterintuitive image of lincoln. he doesn't have the beard. we will not going to that today. this is the lincoln i'm talking about, all right? all right, we've gone a little bit over his early life. by the way, come many of you have been to the lincoln museum? the lincoln museum is awesome. check it out. did you like it? it's really nice. this was put together by the lincoln museum. they did a really impressive job with this. they called in scientific experts like csi types you know crime scene investigation that kind of thing to use photographs of lincoln and extrapolate backwards what we think he would have looked like when he was a child. this would have been when he was 12 or 13. this is as good as we are going to get. first question. let's dispose of that first question fairly quickly. what did abram lincoln think about slavery? the institution of slavery question mark that's n

lincoln's critics freeze something he said at one point in time and not balance it out with things he said it other point in time. you talk about marycarter pointing out his period of infidelity, then not talking about his second inaugural. i don't think i ever read or heard a criticism where i do not hear lincoln's words quoted back to me from charleston in 1858. i am not now, nor ever have been, in favor of equality between blacks and whites. i am paraphrasing. you never hear the balancing idea that he signed the confiscation act, that he believes the slaves had issue. he believed, let us quit quibbling about this race or that race. or, he says how the declaration of independence applies to all people, forever. you get this imbalance, which is the criticism of lincoln. i think that was something i wanted to bring out in the book. another critic of lincoln that is important in the 1930's, is also from illinois. that shifts in the 1930's, largely, prior to the 1930's, the lincoln criticism had been a regional phenomenon. that is understandable, anyway. in the 1930's, edgar lee masters was from illinois, and he published a book calle

lincoln in the cathedral. a united daughter of the confederacy member named mary carter, related to the lee family by marriage,she actually writes these public letters in the southern church magazine an official organ of the it is couple -- episcopal church out of virginia, and i found these at the virginia historical society, these big letters editorials on the backs of these church newspapers. she writes the bishop of washington, d.c., and listen to the language. this is published. as you are aware, she writes there is a very serious religious crisis in this country. the young are drifting away from the home and the churches and into criminal currents. the conclusion is inescapable that one of the major causes of is the absence of christian qualities in the clergy, they fail to attract the young because their character lacks the discriminating and compelling christian virtues. as illustrating this lack, abraham lincoln is the only american who to my knowledge ever wrote a book to disprove the bible and the divinity of christ, and called the redeemer of mankind an illegitimate child. yet, he is the only perso