book tv interviewed professor brian melton about his biography of robert e. lee. this is about half an hour. >> host: on your screen is brian melton's new book "robert e. lee, abiography." professor melton, why have over 2,000 books be written about robert e. lee. >> guest: a fascinating man and integral part of american history. that simple. and the fact that after the war was over with, when so many people, particularly south of the mason-dixon were so desperate to figure out where could they have won. lee came to epitomize that idea, that if only lee had been in charge the whole time. if only lee had been able to lead them better, then perhaps the south could have won the civil war, and that would be a little bit of a change to to u.. history. >> host: was lee a successful military general? >> guest: yes, he was, and at the same time he wasn't. obviously. on the one hand lee won some amazing battles. you can look at the second bull run as an example. you can look at chancellor'sville, second bull run has been called his greatest victory. i personally prefer chan

lee already been was already robert e. lee. how do you replace robert e. lee as a confederate general? so he will back and said that he trusted lee, and that he knew that there was no one else who could do the jobs better than lee. so then on out lee fights the best he can all the way back to the overland campaign. he fights the best that he can, but at the same time he knows it's a losing battle. but it's not his job as a soldier to make that decision, as far as he is concerned. so during the last month, lee is just barely holding on to quetta been going on is grant is constantly getting reinforcements in the petersburg trenches. and every time grandkids reinforces he stretches his lead farther and farther towards the all important railroad lines that are bleeding into richmond. when grant eventually gets to the point where he thinks he has lee overextended and he orders an attack. this is a process that repeats itself. lee retells the attack. grant extends, extends, extends. probes again. it gets to the point where lee realizes he doesn't have the ability

i know voting has your attention. >> just check robert e. lee or vote for robert e. lee and then ask -- yes, sir? oh, you need a ballot. >> if you don't have more questions i'm going to read more limericks. yes, sir? >> the line of reasoning that you introduced about lee being a great e mans parent because he freed the league, and i wonder what you think of the argument that he was an inadvertent e man si pater with causing this great mound of victory over the summer and forces lincoln's hand into launching the emancipation proclamation. by doing that, could you also say lee is an inadvertent emancipat o tshg emancipator. >> lincoln said that everything seemed to be going badly about the war and this was in june when he started going to the war office and asked for paper from the clerk and drafting something that the clerk wondered what he was drafting and lincoln said, everything seemed to be going badly and throughout that summer of '62 and he knew that he had to -- he had considerable pressure from that frederick douglas fellow and others to do something about race

robert e. lee with 71 votes was promoted from the king of spades to the ace of spades. robert e. lee is the man of year for 1862, and i'd like to thank all of you for coming and please get home safely. >> so the winner at the library in virginia in richmond for person of the year is the selection of robert e. lee as person of the year 1862. aga again, the nominees today were from robert krick, who is the chief historian of fredericksburg for 30 years, david blight of yale nominated frederick douglas who came in third, nominated by james macpherson came in first and he was dead last in the voting in virginia and we congratulate professor thomas and we'll open up the phone line again for our viewers. professor thomas, you earn a big trophy or a big prize? no, i got a handshake for the director of the museum of the confederacy. you talked a little bit about this in your nomination for robert e. lee. when with general lee was the command of the union army in the spring of 1861, did he have inkling that

unfortunately i did not get to seep the distinguished scholar who nominate ed robert e. lee so i would like to briefly comment on that myself to at least get your response to that. >> robert e. lee in this forum has not been nominated today. >> caller: i would like to play devil's advocate. >> go ahead. >> caller: he simply was the most important figure in the war. let's not forget that he had -- i'll be brief. he had four very important battles. he turned the strategy around by going on the attack in the seven days which had previously been a defensive campaign by the confederacy. and then he won by not losing the battle at antitem which very nearly did happen, he saved the confederacy that could hardly live with destruction over northern virginia and had crushing victories. >> i'm going to let you go and let jim mcfer some mcpherson reply on what do you think of his case on robert e. lee? >> well, tell him to stay tuned. there are two more nominations to come this afternoon. we may hear about robert e. lee yet. i would say that he certainly has a good case. in the end the

eastern this weekend on cspan 3. >>> next, wayne shaw looks at the generalship of robert e. lee. his class is part of a course called the american way of war. it's 50 minutes. >> as you know, the topic of the class is sort of robert e. lee and not just to talk about his life and career, but to sort of assess his generalship, his command. the first thing, when you need to do something like this and we'll do this with grant on friday. the reason i have the class structured this way, as we'll probably talk about later in this class, if you criticize, a lot of times, it ends up being in comparison to grant. if we're going to talk about how we assess the general, the commander's abilities, the question then becomes what's the criteria one uses for that. now, does anyone in your readings think that lee has no merits as a general whatsoever? anyone saying, lee's terrible to everything? terrible question. no. okay. so, what is the consensus, even and in your readings, who's the critic? which guy? historian? is gallagher a critic of lee? >> no. >> yeah, okay. he gives you all the critics a

part of american history tv. >> wayne shaw looks at the generalship of robert e. lee. it's 50 minutes. 50. >> as you know the topic of the class is robert e. lee. not just to talk about his life and career but to assess his command. so, the first thing obviously when you need to do something like this and we will do this with grant on friday. the reason i have the class structured this way is because as we will probably talk about later in this class, if you criticize or defend lee, a lot of times it ends up being in comparison to grant. you probably noticed that in the wide reading. but before we get to grant, let me start with lee. if we're going to assess the commander's abilities, the question then becomes what's the criteria one uses for that. now, does anyone in your readings think that lee has no merits as a general whatsoever? does anybody say lee is terrible to everything? that is a rhetorical question. russel, criticizes lee. all right? but even he says what good things about lee? what do you mean by that? >> very aggressive. typical west pointish general? >>

what relative of robert e. lee is a lot of times compared to lee as something that should have been done from the revolution? or which very famous important relative of lee admittedly at some level removed -- >> washington. >> yes, washington. does washington act like lee during the revolution? >> no. >> what is washington's one crucial priority? to maintain the army, to keep the army in tact. that means and how does that then -- so that's washington's strategy is the army must survive, so how does that then affect his operational stance? what does washington do then as a consequence of that? >> washington follows a strategy and preserves hypotheses i army and lee should have pre terveed and knew he could win the battles he fought so kept on fighting. >> exactly. you see the different -- now, i know i have you read the wiegly on monday. who does do the fabian strategy. >> johnston. >> during what campaign. >> atlanta. okay. all right. >> he was criticized. >> who? >> the confederates, the people. >> do you remember

the lost cause crowd in the american south cannot ever forgive george mead for beating robert e. lee on an open field with roughly open numbers. nobody's ever done it. mead is the only general who beats lee until the closing weeks of the war when the army is decomposing around lee. think of this. you know, mead is the only commander of who is never fired or relieved. when grant comes east to assume overall command of the armies, he keeps mead on. he keeps mead on until the end of the war until the disbandment of the army. grant did not suffer as badly, but the other problem he has is he had the jealousy of hooker who mead replaces, of butterfield, the crowd of sickles. the lost cause people in the south saying somehow mead lost the battle by magic. couldn't have been mead. betrayed him, another myth. a much better sense of how warfare was changing, and leaving at that point. his finest hours in 1864 when mead gets the killing power of rifled weapons, the importance. the last great battle where a commander can stand on the front stand and see just about everything that's going on unti

by a long, circuitous route, president davis and robert e. lee were eventually forcinged to contend as clay born had with the humanity and politics of the slaves whose status as property they had seceded to secure. by 1864 and '65, officials in the highest reaches of the confederate government were forced to try to win slaves over off to the confederate cause. a little hard to digest. but there you have it. forced to try to one slaves over to the confederate causeperatelr military service. as incredible as it might seem they wanted to enlist slaves as soldiers. then with national survival at stake, very few were prepared to entertain emancipation as the the terms of that service, as claiborne, had insist they'd must. in a tightly controlled, this 'tis, a union cartoon of what would happen if the confederacy did it. they said they would make it to union lines within two minutes of being mustered into the confederate army. in a tightly controlled, top down way, that included the public solicitation of general robert e. lee's support. president davi

you know, robert e. lee would say most military service is digging, it's labor, and we can have all this sort of ancillary troops to do this. that's why impressment is so important. you know, officers, commanders would send out requisitions for 5,000 male slaves from a county and they'd get 300. after they went out and had to drag them out at gunpoint and threaten the owners. so this quickly collapsed. and i would say one of the things i learned, not being a military historian, is that the military men, other than planters, who got the -- who learned the truth very quickly and first when the war started about what slaves wanted, the next people to learn that lesson were the military. people in the government, politicians, talked the taurks the pro-slavery talk a lot longer than military men. the most radical plans recognizing slaves' anti-confederate desires came from military men. so i think it's kind of the opposite. i think there was in a sense military plans in a general sense of military labor, military

the confederacy in the new american nation series, an acclaimed biographies of jeb stewart and robert e. lee. he's an old friend of the museum of the confederacy and has written and lectured about the museum itself and its role in civil war memory. his latest work "the dogs of war 1861" is a collection of essays that are apropos of the civil war sesquicentennial, he'll be in virginia in april lecturing about jeb stewart at the university of mary washington. great live series on april 3rd. today he'll be nominating -- i can't say it, i'll let him tell you. but, emery, if you get up here and talk about jon bankhead mcgruder, i'll cut you short and we'll get on with robert e. lee. >> thank you very much. you didn't mention some embarrassing things. fortunately. i did some work on "time's" person of the year before coming here. i thought it would be a better look if i could see what they'd done to maybe project your voting this most influential person in 1862. supposedly this -- i mean, journalistic legend has it that it was a slow news week in 1927, and "time" was smarting because they had fail

i was either bruce lee's brother or a descendant of robert e. lee. [laughter] whenever i got really patriotic, robert e. lee. [laughter] that is how i got into college. [laughter] i used that opportunity in those four years to allow my mind -- i loved studying. it was one of those places where you can read books come interact with professors -- read books, interrupt with professors. none of my class is had more than 10 students at a time. they could interact with you. that was the most welcome ing part of the college experience. >> you said you are here on a part-time or temporary basis. you do not want to be mayor. you want to have your old job back. it pays more. there are already several people running for mayor. you have until august to make a decision. what if some of your powerful friends came to you and said they did not like to was leading in the polls invite you to run, would you consider it then? >> they have already done that. as powerful as they are, i have been very polite in telling them that i think it is neat to have a mayor go back to

they needed somebody there was more sound event stevan and was to install robert e. lee as dictator. i don't know if he was never approached about this, but certainly he would have never counted such an idea. there were others who called for more extreme. robert toombs, never a 10-foot man. actually set of december, 1864 the jefferson davis must be removed or killed or the confederacy is going down the drain. i don't know that he was actually advocating assassination, but there was at least one assassination, and we do know that there were these couples always powerless because they were often lead the faludi man chongging to plot to remove jefferson davis from office. but he stuck it out. this is how political things remained up until the very end. things began to change dramatically. by the the beginning of 1865 it is pretty apparent to everyone that the handwriting is on the wall, the numbers have worked against the confederacy for too long and especially after the reelection of abraham lincoln of members 64 has made evident that the north is willing to stay the cours

the neighboring county of appomattox which was down the street from the courthouse where general robert e. lee surrendered to general ulysses s. grant that ended the civil war. once they found that school that had the next calabash task of convincing their father they should go to school. and the way they convinced him was by saying we will take care of the chores on the farm. we will do that work and our school will not interfere with the business of the farm. they did this and that was no easy task because my great- grandfather ruled his farm with an iron fist. yet to me, this was -- there are an example of their unshakeable persistence and unflinching sacrifice for their pursuit for a better life. as i determined black women left their home and saw entertainment in washington, d.c.. and they knew the value men -- the value of education. there were able to buy their homes and support their families. another woman in my life who demonstrates unshakeable persistence and unflinching sacrifice is my mother who is sitting over there with my son. [applause] she kept her eyes on the prize that is e

among those discussioned abolitionist leader frederick douglass, robert e. lee, and george b. mcclellan, the general who had a campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes our book tv and american history tv programming on the road. this past weekend featured little rock, arkansas. with book tv at the university of arkansas. >> the high school collected photographs and he was particularly, again, interested in the 19th century, the civil war in particular. these are two friends, union and confederate, who knew each other prior to the civil war, who fought against each other at the battle of pearidge in 1862, survived the war, came out alive and remained friends after the war and here they are age 100 sitting on the porch talking about the old days. >> american history tv looked at life in a world war ii jap these internment camp. >> a lady wrote a wonderful book and gamman meant surviving the unsurvivable, sort of. and she talks a lot about how the arts and the crafts were how they kept their sanity and it gave the

general robert e. lee did not help the situation as south of the potomac he added legend by routing a vastly superior union force at menassis junction. general john pope who commanded the union forces of menassis was outgeneral and outfought by lee's troops undered the leadership of stonewall jackson. flushed with repeated successes and confidence, they took the offensive. word was flashed to washington that the army of virginia was innovating the north. speculation and rumor began to whisper that the end of the car was in sight as the threat to washington grew. lincoln sent word to al vand ria an urgent call of the union army. general george mclellan had been in space after the campaign. now lincoln summoned him back and his orders are stop lee at all costs. those costs were to be high. on september 17th, 1862, union and confederate forces would meet near the towns of sharpsburg and haegerstown, maryland. more than 1,000 men would be involved in the battle. and one woman, clara barton, would carve for her

in half an hour, a lecture of robert e. lee, then grant, who commanded the union army. >>> april 15th, 1912, nearly 1500 perish. >> once the look outs sounds, an iceberg ahead, struck the bells three times. ding, ding, ding, which is a warning saying there's some object ahead. doesn't mean dead. means ahead. doesn't say what kind of object. what the lookout then did, he went to a telephone and called town to tell what it is they saw and the phone would finally answer, the entire conversation was what do you see? and the response was iceberg right ahead and the response from the officer was thank you. >> samuel helper on the truths and myths of that night. sunday, 4:00 p.m. eastern this weekend on cspan 3. >>> next, a biography about general douglas macarthur who served in world war ii. his military career came to a close in 1951 when president harry s. truman releahed him of his command. this was produced in 1952 by the army pictorial center. >>> the united states army presents a big picture. an official report produced for the

general robert e. lee did not help the situation as south of the potomac he added a measure to the legend of his invincibility by routing a vastly superior union force at manassas junction. general john pope, who led the union forces of manassas, was simply out-generaled and outfought by lee's troops under the immediate leadership of stonewall jackson. flushed with repeated successes and confident of their own destiny, lee's forces boldly took the offensive. word was flashed to washington that the army of virginia was invading the north. speculation and rumor began to whisper that the end of the war was in sight. as the threat to washington grew, lincoln sent word to nearby alexandria an urgent call to the ex general in chief to the union army. general george mcclellan had been in disgrace after his peninsular campaign. now, lincoln summoned his back. his orders, stop lee at all costs. those costs were to be high. on september 17th, 1862, union and confederate forces would meet at antietam, gaithersburg, m

now, realize robert e. lee in the mexican war where he is the finest soldier scott ever saw on the field really didn't have a command. he was on scott's staff. lee has never commanded anything more than two companies of marines at harper's ferry on act 16th, 1859, when they stormed the fire engine house and captured five rebels commanded by john brown. harper's ferry, 1859. now, maybe commanding two companies of marines is all you need. the marines contend that way anyway. but here is lee confronting 105,000 yankees who are in the suburbs of richmond. and what did he do? he set his men to work digging trenches, field fortifications. and so this man who had been called granny lee, the overcautious, is now known as the king of spades because all he wants to do is have these trained killers, these warriors, dig ditches with shovels with picks and things and that's not much fun. but that's what soldiers do! and lee points that out. what he wants to do and what he did was to hold richmond with 25,000 troops, fall up

among the names discussed abolitionist leader frederick douglas, robert e. lee and george b. mclellan. >> this is cspan 3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week. every weekend 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our web sites. and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >>> every weekend, hear eyewitness accounts about american history and the people and events that shaped our nation. oral histories. saturday, 8:00 a.m. sunday afternoon at 3:00. and monday mornings at 4:00 eastern. only on american history tv on cspan 3. learn more about our programs and series along with schedules and online video are chive at cspan.org/history. >>> next, as part of the university of oklahoma's teach-in on the founding of america, yale university law and political science professor, talks about how the presidency of andrew jackson transformed the constitution in ways that affect us today. this is about an hour. >> thank you so much. it's -- thank you, thank you. i

i suppose next to abe in 162, you would have to choose robert e. lee. david blight joins us from the library in virginia, and he's going to take your phone calls. david blight, welcome to american history tv. >> thank you very much. glad to be here. >> frederick douglass was born a slave but in the eastern shore of maryland. how did he so at such a young age become so such an integral part of the abolition movement? >> well, he didn't become part of the abolition movement until he escaped at age 20, of course, but he was already well conditioned can, one might say with a powerful and abiding story. he escaped from slavery at age 20. disguised as a sailor with a few dollars in his pocket and a copy of one book. and he escaped by three ferryboats and two train rides to new york city. and then on to new bedford, massachusetts. in new bedford, he worked as i caulker, and a day laborer until about 1839, 1840. he escaped in 1838 but he began to speak at a black church. the african methodist episcopal zion church of new bedford and it was there that he was dis

among the names discussed, abolitionist leader frederick douglas, robert e. lee and george b. mcclellan. and a failed 1862 campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. c-span's 2012 local content vehicle cities tour takes book tv and american history tv programming on the road the first weekend of each month. he collected photographs and was interested in the 19th century. the civil war in particularch these are two friends, union and confederate who knew each other prior to the civil war. who fought against each other at the battle of pea ridge, 1862. survived the war. came out alive. remained friends after the war. here they are at am in 100 on the porch talking about the old days. >> american history tv looked at life in a world war ii japanese internment camp. she talks a lot about how the arts and crafts were how they kept their sanity. it gave them something to do. and how depression was so bad. that a lot of the camps, and the people, there was the high incidence of suicide. and so people would make these little things of beauty to give to each other just as a

had gone all the way to virginia and let's say it took six weeks to get there -- and it struck robert e. lee in the side of the leg and he bled to death. would he have developed into the great, at that point, would he be remembered as the the great military genius that he is and would his face be on the side of some mountain, i don't know? he evolved. he evolved. >> i might also comment, in regard to sherman and grant. and the issue of surprise. they tried to defend themselves at the time on the issue of surprise and of course sherman very disturbed when grant is being criticized so. and sherman has to know that -- if grant was surprised a lot of the reason is because he was surprised. you know i doubt if they had admitted, "yes i was surprised. but then i fought well." i don't think they would have survived. i don't believe either one of them if they had admit they'd were surprised by the attack -- would have -- >> as we know this is an issue long past the war when the -- when the fell loeows are gettind and arguing this. one of the most intriguing thing, civil war. some of the best postwar

. >> just assume if someone were to nominate robert e. lee later in the day, assume that's a possibility, because we're not having a panel discussion at the end that will give you all a chance to dis each other's candidate, what would you say to someone who nominated -- why would the audience -- why should the audience vote for stonewall jackson instead of r.e. lee? >> instead of lee. i could hardly sleek at horror that lee was the man for 1862. but the question of when in southern consciousness the track of the two x axis crossed is something i've long debated with gary gallagher in forums like this. he's inclined to think that lee became the man in the south in perception. well before jackson's death. i'm not so sure of that. but lee's rise to prominence was appreciably later than jackson's. that's unquestioned whether it was late in 1862 or not, none one. number two, lee's rise to provenance was in considerable degree facilitated by jackson's success, allowing the seven days to unfold. so you can pay your money and take your choice with th

among the names discussed, abolitionist leader frederick douglass, confederate general robert e. lee, and george b. mcclellan, the union general who commanded a failed 1862 campaign to take the confederate capital of richmond. this is c-span 3. with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week and every weekend 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. each weekend on american history tv learn more about the presidents, their policies and legacies, through their historic speeches and discussions with leading historians. every sunday morning at 8:30 eastern and again at 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. here on c-span 3. and to find out more about the series and our other programming, including our weekend schedules and online video, visit c-span.org/history. while the founding fathers get the credit for the creation of america, without the encouragement and work of many women things may have ended up differently. next, georg

the most famous, jack got this, what if robert e. lee had had automatic weapons? would that have made a difference at picket's church? in a way, in analyzing what lincoln might have done, we're dealing with a what if question. and let's speculate what lincoln does instead of acting as -- without calling congress, his first decision is to call congress into special session and turn this issue over to congress. you know, given our wide, high opinion of congress and its ability to find solution and compromise, you can only imagine what might have come out of that. i think, i'm going to say just right, i think more than too cold, in the respect that it was wise of him for all his dealing with the postmaster of bloomington, illinois, to avoid direct -- calling congress into session and including a broader variety of advisers in that issue. one of the things clearly that lincoln wanted to do was conserve his enemies. there were 15 slave states, seven had succeeded and eight were in disaster. so, proactive actions of any kind might have triggered that, throwing it into t

in the course of one week the battle of the seven days, robert e. lee would lose 20,000 casualties. a fourth of his army. in doing so, he was somewhat disappointed that he didn't get the resounding victory that he'd planned for. he wrote his wife our success has not been as great or as complete as i could have desired, and in his official report to the confederate war department he stated under ordinary circumstances the federal army should have been destroyed. this is a word you see in lee's communications throughout the war, destroyed. oddly enough, it's that word that so frequently emanated from abraham lincoln, i want the rebel army destroyed. not discouraged. destroyed! but the army of the potomac was not destroyed. in fact, it continued to be quite a potent force. and although they had suffered themselves nearly as many casualties as the confederates, 15,000, a distinguished historian that we just heard from in his marvelous book entitled "battle cry freedom" said that although mcclellan's men had fought with admirable courage during this week of battles, mcclellan was a whipp

robert e. lee and ulysses s. grant, and at 10:10, a film about george marshall who went on to serve as secretary of state and defense secretary. this is c-span3, with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week, and every weekend, 48 hours of people on the bench telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedule and see past programs at our website and join in our conversation on social media sites. >> an inspector generals report issued last week detailed spending at a conference outside of las vegas. the inspector general testifies about his investigation before the house oversight committee on monday. and you can see that live here on c-span3 beginning at 1:30 eastern. >> on behalf of the students joining us from fair fax, virginia, at george mason university, and from the washington center here in washington, d.c., with students representing more than 200 colleges and universities spending their semester here in our nation's capital, i want to welcome you back to the c-span cl

we think of robert e. lee and some others who went with the confederacy but most west pointers went with the union. unfortunately, a lot of them were not well known. so it didn't make that much of a difference. but consider the fact that the greatest military man in the united states at this time, west pointer or not a west pointer, actually, winfield scott, winfield scott, when he stayed with the great military mind. look what he did in previous wars. but the difficulty was, those people who all went to west point got to know each other. and when the war began and someone -- some went one way, some went the other way, the problem is that they did know each other. they were all the same training. they had the same ideas, many, many of them. so as a result, when the war began, they all fought in terms of fighting about the same way. consequently, when you fight the same way, and you know what the guy is going to do, it's very difficult not to react -- pardon me. it's very difficult to react in an appropriate wa

confederate general robert e. lee. and at 10:10, the world war ii army chief of staff who went onto serve as secretary of state and defense secretary. >>> the pope has a very famous way of being determined, and that's with with the camera lingoa cardinal level post. the pope hand pick this is person. and this person decides when the pope is dead. he hits him three times in the head with a silver hammer and calls out his baptismal way. which is carried over from the romans. even today, the pope is dead until he says he's dead. >> saturday night at 10:00 eastern. the ever changing description of death and his controversial argument that the business of organ harvesting is blurring the line. also weekend on book tv, former pennsylvania senator arlen specter on the split between old guard members of his party and those supported by the tea party. book tv. every weekend on c-span 2. tuesday is the deadline to file federal income tax returns. he testified before a house ways and means sub committee about this year's tax fili

>> there were a lot of people, including jefferson davis and e even to some extent robert e. lee hoping things would turn out differently. i cite her as an example. s a largeee segment of people dido their heads in the sand and didn't want to see what was o coming and other people talk ana evac ways acuation and feared i. a range of opinion.a the government actually made some effort of evacuation a week or so before the fall of the city but didn't do it with enough energy either to frighten people or to accomplish what they were trying to do, becausey when the time came they to throi together a couple of trains and they escaped with some of the papers and the cabinet officers, and that was it. yes? >> how would you compare the significance of the fall of esti richmond and the surrender at rd epmatics?er >> question is, how does the fall of richmond and the surrender compare?y the fall are richmond, because of the telegraph lines, the o union army had telegraph lines 3 to washington. so that the city fell the and morning of monday, april the y 3rd, by mid-morning, people kne in wa

the author was a descendent of robert e lee. her book helped highlight the justice system.did not commit and the courage of a white man that defends him. president obama will honor that legacy with a special screening at the white house. the message of the movie and the book is as relevance now as it was 50 years ago. we should learn from our past to plan our future, and instruction our behavior and involvement in the present. thanks for

. >> reporter: inside the mcclain house on april 9, 1865, a meeting between generals robert e. lee and ulysses s. grant marked the end of the bloodiest war on american soil. >> from 1:30 to 3:00 they would talk about nonsurrender related items, the surrender itself and write out the terms in a form of letters. >> reporter: roger's great, great grandfather was among the 28,000 confederate soldiers who surrendered at appomattox. >> it's undescribable to think about what they endured the last wake coming into appomattox. >> a big question was answered: could this nation survive a civil war intact? the answer was yes. >> reporter: each soldier was handed a parole pass serving as a meal ticket and free ride home. >> they were printed right here in the clover hill tavern. >> reporter: kevin just so happened to bring his granddaughter on the 147th anniversary of the surrender. >> it makes it come alive actually. >> there's a wealth of information right here for us and we need to respect our past and come. >> reporter: the national park service and town and county officials will spend the

. >> and you said you learned on the tour that robert e. lee was an extraordinary general, and we were commenting that it took lincoln so long to find a general who could beat lee because grant was the only one who was willing to just throw troops at him to be slaughtered. because lee would outmanoeuvre anyone who was put against them. >> had the union made a couple of mistakes, the war might have ended differently. but lincoln realized also that the north simply had the numbers. they had the people, the factories, they had everything. so it was a war of attrition, where essentially the union goal was to kill as many confederates as possible at the risk of their own men because that would end the war. the confederates would run out of steam, and that's what would happen. >> when you were in nashville, did you ever come across these guys that every time you talked about robert e. lee they go, generally. >> oh, yeah. >> when you live in the south for 10 years as i did, you realize that the obsession of the south regarding the ignorance in the nor