nat turner. who is nat turner? whites thought that nat turner was crazy. he was a fanatic. who wrote down's nacht turner's confessions which are readily available online. i encourage you to read it. one of the things my book does, i am not going to talk about this today as it takes the confessions more seriously than anyone has in the last 50 years. i make arguments about the reliability of these confessions. my argument -- you can read it if you want -- is that they actually are what they say they are basically what nat turner said. sourceakes me remarkable -- which makes him a remarkable source. you can read it in an hour. if you want to find out why he rebelled, you can read it online. newspaper reports said he was a fanatic. he is a preacher, and a pretend profit. this is the model that has lasted. it is important part of our way, the slaver vault. turner --sions of nat there he is. he is still a fanatic. he is still a little crazy. that is who it is. whichk there is a way in this has been one way of understanding nat turner's revolt is just by saying it's just this cra

today am going to talk about nat turner. not turner did not happen in gettysburg in 1860 -- nat turner did not happen in gettysburg in 1863. how do i get you back to 1831? you know, is a central battle, a place of the most important battle that happened in american history. it is also the place of the gettysburg address. this is a place where history has happened, so people come here, unlike southampton county, where history happened but people don't come. we don't have a woodstock for nat turner. i love this, civil war woodstock. this is awesome. we don't have that. well, i guess we do, it is like when me and ken greenberg get together for drinks. it is not the same. how do i get you guys back there? aboutt going to tell you 1863 more than you already know. abrahamtart with this, lincoln. it is his cooper union addressing 1860, 1 of the most important speeches he makes. and this is when he is a candidate. that picture from matthew brady is taken the same day as the cooper union address. has anyone ever raged as much in five

the confessions of nat turner.

so we knew we had nat turner's bible. so for us, once we were able to get harriet tubman, nat turner, we few we could find the stuff of history that would matter for people. >> now, the price tag of all of this was about half a billion dollars, 500 million dollars. the federal government covered half of that. the rest of it you had to come up with. i love this -- there's so many stories about the generous people who gave their priceless family heirlooms to the collection, and then the generous people who wrote multimillion dollars checks to make this happen. and one of them, no surprise to anyone, was oprah winfrey. let me read this to you. over time, she became the largest -- she became the largest financial supporter of the museum. one of my favorite oprah moments occurred when she called in from california during a council meeting in 2015, as we neared an important fund-raising milestone, there was a discussion as to how we would close the gap. oprah, who had already committed more than 12 million dollars said she like

. >> did you know of the connection to nat turner?y. >> their strange inheritance? a piece of history. >> did you think to yourself there's any chance this really could be nat turner's bible? >> my first reaction was one of, "is this a crank call?" >> what do you think it's worth? >> i was told several millions of dollars. >> what will the family do? >> it wasn't the proper place and time to really talk about it. [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ]

i was giving a speech, an archaeologist comes to me and says i can help you find material from nat turner show you where the insurrection occurred. i don't have time for that. this guy calls every month for 6 months. he takes me to southhampton county, where this inspiration occurred and when that turner was captured, in the county courthouse and the bible. the bible was given to a family that lost the largest number of people during the insurrection and they kept it for years and it was a souvenir for them and talking about wouldn't it be great to have that from nat turner and this woman called us, we had a great bible but then it is the real thing. we did all this research. people researched the age of the paper. and the frontispiece from the 1880s. we knew we had nat turner's bible so for us once we get harriet tubman, matt turner, we knew we could find the stuff of history that would matter. >> the price tag of all this is half $1 billion. the federal government covered half of that. the rest of it you had to come up with. i love this, so many stories about generous people who gave th

author patrick breen discusses his book, the land shall be day loosed in blood, a new history of the nat turner revolt. this is part of the gettysburg college civil war institute summer conference. peter: i'm peter carmichael, a member of the history department at gettysburg college and director of the civil war institute. it is my pleasure to introduce patrick breen, an associate professor in history in history and classics at providence college. he is the father