our appellate union, bob fallon, the dew point district attorney, and andrea, they're not here because they're usually in the background. they and their teams across the way, across the hall where you sit right now, have kept up with everything that the defense threw at us, every attempt to stop this up, the motions that were filed, they have just worked and worked and worked to make sure that we could get to the point where we could go into a courtroom and try a case. the other thing i would be remiss if i did not speak about, is the community and a number of the folks up here with us, chief gallin and i and the chief cannot be more proud of our law enforcement community and everything they've done through this. so, sergeant schaeffer here who has been with this since day one, and everything that he d did. this guy retired and he's still here. and harry and all the folks from cheltonham who worked their tails off in this. and nothing, but great things to say about them and over on the side, mike and jim reeves, montgomery county detectives and we're all just so proud of them. deputy c

this together and i look at the union army records, when i look at the reports of these escaped prisoners there are literally thousands of people on the move any appellationsn the last winter of the war. people that the confederacy wants to keep contained because they are deserters that are moving out of the can -- out of the confederacy and returning as raters. what was interesting to me is that there is many reasons the confederacy cannot contain this movement effectively at the end of the war. one of the most important reasons is that the confederacy has absolutely confused military jurisdiction in this region of the south. upm about to put the slide and say some things very rapidly that are going to lead you to be incredibly confused. i think it is important that i do that because by the time i am done and you are confused, you will be in the same mental state as the confederate secretary of war james a seven -- deserters areand traveling through the confederate military district of western north carolina. the question is, who is in charge of that district? who is in charge of it? months, nobody in the confederate war department had been clear on wheth