. >> pat mcneely, your book is titled "knights of the quill." who were the knights of the quill, and what interested you in writing a book on this aspect of the civil war? >> the knights of the quill were confederate reporters who wrote for newspapers during the civil war. their colleagues in the north were called bohemians, and one of the things that interested me and my fellow colleagues who wrote the book is that these reporters normally used synonyms during the civil war. the confederates used synonyms -- pseudonyms throughout the civil war, but in the north military reporters were required to put their initials after their names after their articles. so as a result u, the federal reporters were more easily identified. and my colleagues, henry schulte of, retired usc professor and debbie von tool and i thought that since this is an underreported area of civil war, we wanted to find out about the lives and memories of these people who reported the civil war for us and remember them. >> you've written that people of varying backgrounds, which