lee's surrender at appomattox. his talk was part of the annual lincoln symposium and is just under an hour. the author of editor of nearly two dozen books including the award winning and recently published neptune. he is also the winner of the -- that particular book won the samuel elliott morrison award. e is the author of lincoln and his admirals which won the lincoln prize in 2009. in recognition of his extraordinary contribution, the naval historicle foundation in 2014 awarded him the congressman duredudly w. knox history award for lifetime achievement. professor john mars lak is william s. giles distinguished professor emeritus of mississippi state university came out of retirement in 2008 and accepted the task of serving as executive director of the uelills sis s grant presidential library and managing editors. he is the tautsdzer of a dozen books. incheweding sherman. and sherman's other war. his honors include an excellence in writing award from the u.s. army historicle oundation. as testament to the high r

appomattox in short grant's -- appomattox, shown here, insured grant's victory as president and would allow grant to be really considered a genuine hero of the american republic, even eclipsing lincoln until after grant's death. the nation's greatest war hero initially had supported johnson's policies. grant came to side with congress, but radicals worried that he lacked strong ideological convictions. his democratic opponent, horatio seymour, was the colorless former new york governor. reconstruction was a central issue of the 1868 campaign. the campaign was bitter. republicans identified your opponents with treason, a tactic known as waving the bloody shirt. democrats appealed openly to racism, charging reconstruction would lead to interracial marriage and black supremacy throughout the nation. grant won the election, although by a margin many republicans found uncomfortably close. he received overwhelming support from let voters in the south, but seymour may well have carried a majority of the nation's white vote. nonetheless, the result was a vindication of a republican reconstruc

lincoln unclee my great, great was the head of a regiment of the volunteers and became a major at appomattox for cutting off lee's retreat. my great aunt was a strong influence and came out to my -- montana in a covered wagon and they met lincoln and one of the daughters of one of the great ands -- aunts decided she would marry this fellow. and one said, he is a democrat. and she said, yes. said,e other and -- aunt we would rather you marry a dog. but lincoln was very much in the picture. anyway, you have already met all of our distinguished panelists. so we are going to have a about the and -- various topics that have been covered here. and i think, is somebody saying something? which one, let's -- of you, i guess we will take questions from the audience. there is a question over there. yes, some of the lectures have talked about, in their lectures, looking back 150 years ago with 21st century glasses, and either making judgments or whatever. something has always interested me in reading from that time period, what the united states was like at that time, in the sense that it was incredibly

he agrees to a post appomattox surrender that retreats from federal policy on emancipation. william t. sherman agrees to a surrender that retreats from federal policy on emancipation. then he or around the same time agrees that land should be given, 40 acres and a mule should be given to free african-americans and then loses interest. in fact, doubles back away from that idea which he agreed to. typical journey or is sherman an anomaly? how do we judge his peculiar odyssey? >> sherman is a strange fellow as you know. >> he also used african-american troops to march through the carolinas and demonstrated a biracial union army. >> he didn't like it. >> he didn't like it but he used it. he was practical. >> sherman as you know lived in the south before the civil war and he understood as some northerners didn't the -- that this was going to be a gigantic war and it would not be very easy to defeat the confederacy. there were many people at the beginning, one battle and that'll be it. you know, you read what he said about the march. you've got to whip, get into the recesses of th

lee's surrender at appomattox. his talk was part of the annual lincoln symposium and is just under an hour. the author of editor of nearly two dozen books including the award winning and recently published neptune.