. >> dr. ayers, writing a book about the shenendoah valley and activities there, will you address in that book or today the importance of david hunter's actions at the battle of piedmont 5 june, his subsequent move up the valley and the diversion then of lee's forces from around richmond? >> i will -- >> to sheridan's -- >> i will do both right now and fascinate link them to my forthcoming book due out next year. i appreciate it. in all honesty, it's been fascinating to study the military events in the valley all the way from the dead of winter of early 1864 and watching not only hunter but before him, siegel and after him, sheridan and watching breckenridge -- i took a pilgrimage to the battle of piedmont battlefield and my wife, bless her heart, agreed to go with me. we went over there and we ended up having to use latitude and longitude to find the one marker that's about the size of this lectern with no place to even pull off. i stood there and i told her honey, you won't believe the thousands o

of course, the war and reconstruction, as dr. ayers mentioned, overlap by a good deal. of course, 1863, lincoln has his 10% plan, congress responds with the way davis built and most classic books on reconstruction era, phoner's book, all begin in 1863 because they begin with this fight in washington, d.c. between whether the president will have jurisdiction and has his 10% plan or whether congress will have jurisdiction. and of course, this is really sort of a disagreement on jurisdiction because the fact is the 10% plan is not all that different from the way davis responds. but for black americans, 1865 was the end of something and it was the start of a new struggle. so when historians look at reconstruction and kind of focus on these disagreements between the so-called moderate lincoln and the so-called radical republicans and then those conservative northern democrats who don't even want to use the term reconstruction. they prefer the term restoration, implying that now that the country is back together, yes, slavery is dead but otherwise, bring the country back the

dr. ayer's lecture this morning. in the fall of 1864, we see these divisions in many ways had nothing to do with race. at the same time they have everything to do with race. this idea that it was something as simple as white supremacy to lead to reconciliation i think a far too simplistic way of looking at it. it lasts well into the 20th century. complex ideas about race are part of that but the whole story. >> [indiscernible] ms. janney: the question is about protestant anti-catholic sentiment. i will punt that one and say that is not something i found a great deal of and don't see that as part of the reconciliation story. >> thank you. it seems to me our culture today in historical memory is almost obsessed with a good guy versus bad guy narrative. you see it all the comic book movies. can you validate that? do you see that as a roadblock in the spanish-american war efforts in reconciliation, needing to have one construct of a good guy versus bad guy without hampering the efforts of reconciliation? ms. janney: i'm

dr. edward l. ayers is founding chairman of the american civil war museum's board. and previously served on the boards of the civil war center and the museum of the confederacy. over the past eight years he's become the face of public history and of the civil war ses k serving as the past of richmond. he's the professor of humanities at the university of richmond. before he began his pioneering work on the digital history at uva, and the studies of the civil war period in augusta county, virginia and franklin county, pennsylvania. he was known as a historian of the post war south. his first book was about crime and punishment in the south. and his new book, life in the south. he was a finalist for the pulitzer prize that year. this makes ed the ideal speaker to set the stage with his talk entitled reckoning with reconstruction on its sesquicentennial. ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce, ed ayers. >> it's great to see you. >> i came in after two weeks in california, i'm ignoring the fact that i got up at 2:30 in the morning biologically time to be here with you,