dr. edward ayers. some of you have met him before, if you are in a sultry heat at manassas, he gave the keynote address at manassas on that date. it seems a very, very, very long time ago. he was more recently a driving force behind the outstanding events in richmond last weekend commemorating the fall of richmond. dr. edward ayers is one of america's preeminent civil war historians and i do not say that lightly. he is one notch is of impeccable scholarship, but reaching people beyond academia. he roots out untold stories amplifies voices unheard, and he constantly challenges us to see events in new ways, always with a sense of historical justice for those who were there. perhaps more than any historian working in the field, he helped us assign meaning to events that were almost always far more complex and far-reaching than we imagined them to be. he is retiring from the university of richmond this summer. while it is a great loss to the university, the prospect of dr. ayers devoting his energies to hi

a while it's a great loss to the university for sure, dr. ayersevoting his time once again to on history is good news tceo the rest news of us. it is my pleasure to introduce you to dr. ed ayers.ha [ applause ] >> thank you.nk y there are indeed very many of ny you. and it's convenient that all of you come labeled. i can see where everybody's from by the baseball caps. so i see everything from boston to mississippi right here a few rows apart. few it seems very fitting. and i'm. going to take just a few a moments for all of us to think of about what it has meant to this country to have the national park service step up throughout the this sesquicentennial to make these sites available to us ensibl welcoming to us. it's true i was at manassas and it was approximately 800 degrees, is my memory. also had the good fortune of at being at fort sumter the evening before the firing.at getty i was also at gettysburg where it was also hot. last weekend in richmond we had thousands of people come to to commemorate what it was like ate when the confederates f

a while it's a great loss to the university for sure, dr. ayersng his time once again to on history is good news tceo the rest news of us. it is my pleasure to introduce you to dr. ed ayers.ha [ applause ] >> thank you.nk y there are indeed very many of ny you. and it's convenient that all of you come labeled. i can see where everybody's from by the baseball caps. so i see everything from boston to mississippi right here a few rows apart. few it seems very fitting. and i'm. going to take just a few a moments for all of us to think of about what it has meant to this country to have the national park service step up throughout the this sesquicentennial to make these sites available to us ensibl welcoming to us. it's true i was at manassas and it was approximately 800 degrees, is my memory. also had the good fortune of at being at fort sumter the evening before the firing.at getty i was also at gettysburg where it was also hot. last weekend in richmond we had thousands of people come to to commemorate what it was like ate when the confederates fled t

thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you dr. ayers. the clock ticks toward 3:00 p.m.ng between lee and grant neared its conclusion, the armies waited under flags of truce sprawled for miles around you. it's likely that after 10:30 that morning not a shot echoed across this landscape. even before official word of the surrender came out confederates realized what the silence portended. they had risked everything in their quest for independence and any chance for recompense beyond pride was gone. a south carolinian wrote, the emotion can only be imagined. i cannot describe it. we looked into each other's faces where blank and fathomless despair was written. neither said one word. our hearts were too full for language. we could only murmur stupidly and meaninglessly the word surrendered and it sounded like damnation. an artilleryman remembered men sobbing like children recovering from convulsions of grief after a severe whipping he said. another said simply, it was the saddest day of my life. not surpriseingsurprisingly, more than a few union soldiers called it the happie

thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you dr. ayers. the clock ticks toward 3:00 p.m.as the meeting between lee and grant neared its conclusion, the armies waited under flags of truce sprawled for miles around you. it's likely that after 10:30 that morning not a shot echoed across this landscape. even before official word of the surrender came out confederates realized what the silence portended. they had risked everything in their quest for independence and any chance for recompense beyond pride was gone. a south carolinian wrote, the emotion can only be imagined. i cannot describe it. we looked into each other's faces where blank and fathomless despair was written. neither said one word. our hearts were too full for language. we could only murmur stupidly and meaninglessly the word surrendered and it sounded like damnation. an artilleryman remembered men sobbing like children recovering from convulsions of grief after a severe whipping he said. another said simply, it was the saddest day of my life. not surpriseingsurprisingly, more than a few union soldiers called i

edward ayers: that still means that reconstruction was radical. dr. caroline janney: absolutely. edward ayers: i heard a story and ask what time a question that the panel before us was asked, what if lincoln had not been assassinated? and he said he thinks it would've slowed the civil rights movement because they wouldn't have been a 14th and 15th amendment because it wouldn't have had the resistance that the white north was willing to overcome that fatigue to make it radical. an interesting thought that if -- if you don't have a 14th amendment, you don't have a foundation for this overwrites movement that follows. i think she made a right point that it is not such a retreat as they are driven from the field in some ways. the white south actually wins reconstruction through military force. through the ku klux klan and riots and those kind of things i think it is -- it is -- >> and andrew johnson gave them a little notch. if they left it up to andrew johnson, there would be no -- >> it would have taken a real military operation to force reconstruction, and there would have been no