it was nathan bedford forrest who was the bravest man on the battlefield. he was made brigadier and given command in the tennessee theater. and for the next three years he was quickly came in the words of sherman that devil forrest. and he embodied the lightning mobile raids of southern cavalry. he tied down 10,000 union trohi. he cripped the assault on atlanta. and unlike the rest of the southerners he never surrendered to a union army. he said i'm going in the -- after the war the slave owning class had lost there was one man, a pop ewe list who embodied the average working southerner who never lost and was defiant and became. and during the period of reconstruction in 1866 and 1867 there was a suspension of habeas corpus. and no one defined this better than forrest. the man who almost single handedly on a horse kept the southern cause alive. look what he said. this is in 1867 with a foundation of the ku klux klan. they would have been like any other failed white group. the order of the white camellia. there is a bunch of southern groups trying to recaptu

and he realized, we have what nathan bedford forest called the bulge on lincoln. takes office march 4th. we can preemptively act, take the high ground. we can't wait around, can't debate, can't wait, we have to form a new government. a few others from georgia who pushed through the georgia plan, that is, we must take power, that it is to say, we must conduct a revolution within a revolution because we have no power to do what we're going to do. to frame a new government, form a congress, elect a president, choose all the executive departments, essentially be ready to go to war and take this back to our home states and say, here it is, take it or leave it. and that is how it came together. it left a lot of people stunned, the south koreaupercross south carolinaens were not happy about it. they're worried about ma what kind of surrender of sovereignty is this new union going to require? and the people of their states, of course, had no referendum in this. whatever. other than being allowed to vote to elect delegates to state conventions who had sent these fellows to

and versus nathan bedford forest and joe johnson. i mean there is a lot of stuff there. wonderful, wonderful story. sherman is a fabulous character. but that's down the road and that's getting ahead of myself. but clearly, the lee grant story is the biggy for most people. i wanted to find a story that really drew me in. i picked up a book by chance, the letters of john and abigail adams. the book of john and abigail. we're fortunate that someone had to save franklin's writings from the dust bin and preserve them for us. george washington is simpler. everybody who had his name on any piece of paper saved it, or obvious reasons. much like they saved robert e. lee's. as i began to read this book about john and abigail, i was struck by this is a love story. i didn't know that. john adams is the man,hi man w states government. think about, you know, the united states government. we sort of take it for granted. we have a senate in the house of representatives and all that kind of stuff. well somebody had to think of that. somebody had to sit down and write that down on paper h