the sad thing for robert e. lee and for the confederacy if you will go so far as that, is that jackson is cut down before lee can even get into pennsylvania which is a huge handicap for him because he has planned the campaign with jackson. that's part of the reason that we are going to have huge confederacy in problems and what will become deaconess beat gettysburg and being. there were three areas of consideration that were explained nationally in the confederacy right at the advent of the chancellorsville campaign after which jackson will die. virginia or the eastern theater represented by number three, the tennessee theater represented by number two and the mississippi theater represented by number one particularly the pittsburgh. robert e. lee, and jackson will determine well before, the battle of chancellorsville that number three needs to be if this is for the spring. they had tried to get prepared to move north before just a full care in army of platonic did but lee fell ill. it delayed their ability to get t

let's bring a robert e. lee there in uniform, let's talk about the thing and get lee to sit down. it looks pretty good with a civil war camera. put on the uniform -- yes, maybe you can succeed a little bit. then you can get cocky, you can take selfies with him. you can make him stand next to you while you sit in his chair. [laughter] garry: but it takes 20 years to get all of the pictures to do this. in the meantime, you have confederate prisoners in their own prison and union prisoners outside. you have abraham lincoln sitting and geoffavis' chair, davis captured in a union present at fort monro -- prison at fort munro. you can put your friend in the same spot. they do a great job at the museum there. there are still surrenders going on. there is a confederate ship that will not surrender for a while, but the war is over. still you have eight conspirators in the lincoln assassination. they will be tried in that room. you can't quite see it, but you can go back there today. four of them will be hanged outside the next day. it is a tennis court now, but it is on an army fort. maybe

they got married in 1831 , of robert e lee and his wife and seven children. for 30 years, arlington was his home. robert was an engineer, one of the top students were he would later return. that meant he spent a lot of time on hampton roads for new york city. almost every winter they would return to arlington for christmas and he would cross the river and work at the chief of engineers office while mary was with their grandkids at home. that continued for 30 years. . south carolina seceded and the other states followed. by then, general in chief mind, the finest soldier ever on the field, they asked if war would break out, what steps they should take, they should have an insurance policy on robert e lee. we probably knew what was in store when he returned. he was summoned to cross the river. first he went to blair house. it called that because it belonged to the blair family. abraham lincoln was asked to offer me the command of the army. robert now stood at a cusp where only washington stood in history. that would forge a nation's future, he never said what he

okay. - robert e. leettle. - [groans] [both groan] [gunfire] - and i'll tell you why. abraham lincoln came home. he said, "i can't beat robert e. lee." and he had all of his generals. they looked great. they were the top of their class at west point. they were the greatest people. there's only one problem. they didn't know how the hell to win. they didn't know how to fight. they didn't know how. and one day... [paper thuds] it was looking really bad. and lincoln just said, "you." hardly knew his name. and they said, "don't take him. he's got a drinking problem." and lincoln said, "i don't care what problem he has. you guys aren't winning." ♪ and his name was grant. general grant. [crowd cheering] it's unbelievable, isn't it? isn't it unbelievable? [crowd clapping, cheering] it's unbelievable. ♪ and he went in and he knocked the hell out of everyone. ♪ - [yelling] - and you know the story. they said to lincoln, "you can't use him anymore. he's an alcoholic." and lincoln said, "i don't care if he's an alcoho

they didn't come about the robert e. lee statue. they didn't even know who the hell robert e. ee was. they came because it was o ortunity to show their allegiance to trump, their allegiance to cism, and i quote people in the book. "we're here for donald trump, to fulfill it." and what happened in el pasoen his killer, a manifesto whe he basically, you know, quotes donald trp's tweets, "white identity, we're going to make this a white country again." it's a dangeus time, so the benefit of the book, and i had no idea when i was writing it that we'd be in the place we're in today, it's a discussion that we need to have, and it needs to be up front.yo >> whelook back at the events of that day, do you think personally as govnor there is more or something different to preventould have done the sequence of events that led to the death of heather heyer? >> yeah. the big issue, and i talk about this in the book,s e location where the permit was granted at the emancipation park where the robert e. lee statue was. margaret, this was no bigger than a couple people's backyards if you put th

courts until ultimately in 1882 in the united states the supreme court ruled with the family of robert e lee. they ruled that in fact the united government had taken that land without due process and without just compensation of law and the title reverted back to custis lee. this posed a dilemma because custis lee now had title to that land where thousands and thousands of union soldiers had been into it. that had already become seen as sacred ground by our fellow citizens. hundreds of troops remain there and custis had the right to evict them all but he said he had no intent to do so but simply wanted to vindicate his family's claim and to receive their just compensation for the splint. over a series of weeks and early 1883 there were negotiations between the u.s. government and his attorneys and ultimately they settled on the price of $150,000. transfer the title clear of any cloud from the lee family back to the united states government. so, custis lee signed on the dotted line and transmitted it to the department of war and the person who accepted that deed and in his official capacity f

i thought, that is a small complement to robert e. lee. warink he said so after the that it wasn't much of a consummate to him that grant was drunk the entire time he was beating lee. the union superiority of numbers was not such as to allow someone who was an idiot or a poor general or drunk all the time to win. if the union had that kind of superiority in numbers, burnside in 1862.e won lso, grants superiority -- grant's superiority in numbers was only three to two, which is -- three toisive two at the front. decisiveenough to be realize that at the civil war, one soldier behind entrenchment is the equivalent of three attacking an open fields. that yes, bute the attacker has the advantage of choosing the time and place of combat. that is true only if you succeed aling the other guy. since the other guy's robert e lee, it won't be that easy. i think the odds are about even. the attacker always has more force, wherever you look, and the attacker does not always win. the point i make with this discussion is to say that although there are co

after the city voted to take down the robert e. lee statue have that these people didn't even know who robert e. lee was. this was an opportunity, this is going to be the time we could come and this would be a time could all come together and sort of what trump has been talking about why this was many a nazism this is the time we could all come together and i tried to do the best they could to keep the lid on it. i continue to see on radio and tv tried to tell folks not to come and counter protests. let these folks walk down the street and get out of town and obviously people want to come out because they were horrified at what they were hearing from these things going on that day. the folks in the city of charlotte were set. i can remember when i finally gained one out and gave my speech i got text from folks from all over the globe, what's going on an american than when trump trump came out and said there were good people on both sides i mean that was the lowest point of his presidency. i had talked to him that day. the phone convers

the two were settlements that emerged on the land of robert e. lee, friedman's village and the lands of jefferson davis and his brothers. two of the most conspicuous confederates did not have their lands restored. those settlements did remain. but by and large, the physical remnants of this history was erased from the landscape there in 1865 and '66. in the years decades and generations that followed as americans set out to remember this war, as they preserved ant bell lum mansions and flocked to battle fields to see old fortifications and burial grounds, there was basically nothing to see about a half million people who had risked their lives to escape slavery and destroy the institution altogether. no wonder this story of emancipation would go forgotten. though a general suppression of slavery's history in this war certainly contributed to that as well. what happened to sinclaire farm? it was subdivided eventually in the 1880s. although it was sold to white owners and became known as a neighborhood or the neighborhood was known as pasture point. so

small house than working the few acres of land around it on sinclair farm where they were when robert e lee surrendered his confederate forces in april 1865 which brings us back to where i started today, the whitehurst's may have envisioned this was the place where they would stay for the long-term, because that is what many other refugees in slavery envisioned about the place where they had taken up residence during the war. despite the deprivation, illness, and suffering, these are places where children had been born were families reunited after years apart. where the injured and sick recovered or where they departed this life. this is where they picked up the pieces from slavery then began to envision a future. these settlements for all of the problems, had become anchors in a tumultuous world of change. but there was now a big problem, a big question, could they stay? in most places, the lands on which they had settled were precisely the same confiscated and abandoned lands in the union's possession that now came under the day in washington. it was about over 800,000 acres of land. not

the permit afterwords they take the statue but half of these people who did not even know who robert e-lee was. this is it you could comment steal our hatred and we all come together and what trump had been talking about the white nationalism in neo-nazis this is the time to all come together and i did the best i could to keep a lid on it i was trying to tell folks do not come we would like to keep it just let them walk down the street and get out of town. the obviously people wanted to come out and they were horrified what they were hearing from these people that day and folks of charlottesville were spectacular and it is sad it sad for virginia but this was a sad day in america and i can remember when i gave my speech i got phone calls and text from those all over the globe because what is going on in america? and then the president said they are good people on both sides and i talked to him that day i had a phone conversation told him what was going on. >> you thought you persuaded him to say the right thing and that he understood there were no good people on the nazi side. >> foolish m

this made him a target for those picking a scapegoat, to insulate robert e. lee for responsibility for confederate performance during the battle. the get his birth heritage center in pennsylvania posted -- the gettysburg heritage center in pennsylvania hosted the talk. tammy: our next speaker is cory pfarr. -- cory works in the department of defense and is in american history author. his works on john quincy adams, john quincy adams's republicanism, and obstacles that stand before us was published by the massachusetts historical society in 2014. his book-length study on the tenant general james longstreet's -- lieutenant general james longstreet's performance at the battle of gettysburg was published this year by mcfarland press. currently, he lives in maryland with his wife and two children. without any further introduction, i would like to present to you mr. cory pfarr. [applause] cory: thank you. all right. good afternoon, everyone. thanks for coming. thanks to the gettysburg heritage center for having me here. we will get right into it. f,t after james longst

i can't say that i love robert e. lee. one could say it was treason but he led the south in a war to maintain my people being slaves. did he accomplish great things for the south? i have to acknowledge that. there are many monuments nobody on the side of history is a winner when it comes to slavery or civil rights. the people we named things after dirt have those things. hopefully, they deserve the names they got because they worked hard to make those happen. more often the names came because people were moment business people. we have an opportunity to name something for a person who worked hard to make this happen. she didn't want the freeway torn down. when she realized it was coming down she said i don't want to see chinatown taken down like chinatowns all over the country. did people like it? no. every year we have the process two people that face-off at presidential election depending on what side you are on you hate that other person. that means we all can disagree but we have to be able to acknowledge when people d

this made him a target for those picking a scapegoat, to insulate robert e. leeor responsibility for confederate performance during the battle. the get his birth heritage center in pennsylvania posted -- the gettysburg heritage center in pennsylvania hosted the talk. tammy: our next speaker is cory pfarr. -- cory works in the department of defense and is in american history author. his works on john quincy adams, john quincy adams's republicanism, and obstacles that stand before us was

-- i make the point in the book, they filed a permit after the city had voted to take don the robert e. lee statue but i make the point they weren't come -- half these people didn't know who robert. >>> lee was, this was an opportunity, this was going to be the time we could come, we can spew or hatred, the time we can all come together and sort of what trump had been tabling about, white nationalism and neo-nazis. time to come together and tried do the best could i to keep a lid on it. continuously was on radio and tv, trying to tell folks not to come and counterprotests we would like to keep it -- just let the folks walk down the street and get out of town. but obviously people all wanted to come out because they were however evidence what they were hearing from-horrified what they were hearing the folkness city of charlottesville were spectacular it's sad. sad for charlottesville, and sad for virginia, but much beyond that, this was a sad day for america and i can remember when i finally went out and gave my speech, i got phone calls and texts from folks all over the globe because what i

and he tried to check out the biography of the confederate general robert e lee. it shows an amazing amount of cheek and wit. and for trying to use the whites only section of the library, wyatt t walker had the police called. he was arrested. his first of 17 arrests over the course of his career as a civil rights activists. that's one of the items we have on view in the exhibition. wyatt t walker became very close friends with dr. martin luther king jr. they first met at an inter-seminary conference in the early 1950's. walker became king's right-hand man. they found the christian southern leadership conference. and organize many of them nonviolent mass protest activities that mark the civil rights movements of the 1960's. martin luther king referred to walker as the cleanest mind. including the birmingham campaign of 1963 and the march on washington. we have an early letter from martin luther king to white t walker. it is dated december 3, 1968. march against segregated schools it is referencing a that walker march was organizing here in richmond. it's signed mik

about it is the ground he was organized to protest the removal of a statue of confederate general robert e. lee violence erupted in more than 30 injured when a counter protester dead. but you also had people that were. very fine people on both sides he wasn't talking about there being good people among the white supremacy and clay and there were a lot of other people who were there that were defending that monument who were the good people that were there defending the monument i'm sure that there were some people who were just history buffs i mean not everybody who thinks the monument should should stay where they are is a racist one doesn't need to be racist in order to. still be ok with a system that systematically oppresses non white groups. and that's what's affiliated with the republican party it's not that everyone in the party is a racist it's that the party is not interested in addressing any type of systemic racism white voters without a college degree flock to trump in the 2016 election partisan tensions are heightened by the fact that white americans are expected to become a minorit

about it either graue he was organized to protest the removal of a statue of confederate general robert e. lee violence or rocked it in more than 30 injured when a counter protester dead. but you also had people that were. very fine people on both sides he wasn't talking about there being good people among the white supremacy and client there were a lot of other people who were there that were defending that monument who were the good people that were there defending the monument i'm sure that there were some people who were just history buffs i mean not everybody who thinks a monument should should stay where they are is a racist one doesn't need to be racist in order to. still be ok with a system that systematically oppresses nonwhite groups. and that's what's affiliated with the republican party it's not that everyone in the party is a racist it's that the party is not interested in addressing any type of systemic racism white voters without a college degree flock to trump in the 2016 election partisan tensions are heightened by the fact that white americans are expected to become a minorit

about it either graue he was organized to protest the removal of a statue of confederate general robert e. lee violence or rocked it in more than 30 injured in a counter protester dead. but you also had people that were. very fine people on both sides he wasn't talking about there being good people among the white supremacy and clay and there were a lot of other people who were there that were defending that monument who were the good people that were there defending the monument i'm sure that there were some people who were just history buffs i mean not everybody who thinks a monument should say he should stay where they are is a racist one doesn't need to be racist in order to. still be ok with a system that systematically oppresses nonwhite groups. and that's what's affiliated with the republican party it's not that everyone in the party is a racist it's that the party is not interested in addressing any type of systemic racism white voters without a college degree flock to trump in the 2016 election partisan tensions are heightened by the fact that white americans are expected to become a

off one of those positions they had lost thousands of troops to death or capture and that was robert e-leeme from sacred duty is the job that has many elements can you tell us about what began? >> dover air force base in delaware is the mortuary for several decades now the only one we have left where the remains of soldiers killed overseas returned to the united states. there has always been something like a dignified transfer for the commander of operations experience one - - explained it to me showing pictures of the fifties through the seventies going by different names and customs but always a small recognition when they were returned to their home. but early 2008 and went to the old guard to perform the mission actually the former captain commander at the time and got the first dover mission and by the time i got there in 2007 those were very common in fact we use a standard duty officer so all those captains at the old guard typically has of these a month and in the spring or summer of 2007 at the height of the surge if you had duty at dover that meant you certainly were going i don'

and he approached robert e. lee several times throughout 1864 as the population of prisoners are growing and growing and growing, and he approaches him about the reinstatement of the exchange. let's reinstate the prisoner exchange. will you exchange black prisoners and lee responds i do not have the authority to exchange black prisoners because the confederate government will refuse to exchange them. and grant and lincoln both agree that as long as the confederacy refuses to exchange black prisoners, they can't in good faith participate in the exchange at all. now, a lot of the men who, of course, are sitting in these putrid conditions in andersonville don't care, right? they want the exchange to get moving again. they want to go home. they're dying there, of course. but both grant and lincoln agree that they have, you know, asked african-american men to fight and to die on behalf of a country take up until auto point had not given them much to do so. by this point several hundred, 000 african thousand americans by

as you move toward the third decade of 20th century where robert e. lee achieves full fruition as national icon, a few years later, fdr of course gave the deadic torrey speech to the stat yu in dallas that dallas took down a few months ago. these are valuable teaching tools. they're complicated in my view. and that's what i tried to get at with in essay, trying to think about the memorial landscapes in ways that make them complicated as the past always is. if there is one thing you think you understand about the past i promise you if you learn more about it it's more complicated than you think it was. but we love hues of black and white now. there are more shades of gray i think in many of these questions. we ended up in charlottesville because i thought i had to, not because that was my first inclination or even second. and will and i -- will took wonderful pictures of the first maine heavy artillery. monument the a petersburg i hated to let them go. we didn't get the plaza in santa fe yet though. i recommended to all of you go to the plaza in santa fe,

officers received their baptism at higher in the mexican war among them were ulysses s grant, robert e lee, william tecumseh sherman, stonewall jackson, george mcclellan and james long street. >>the mexican war was america's first war of invasion, it was thought on multiple fronts across thousands of miles from the texas border to mexico city san francisco bay, in snowy mountains and deserts in summer heat and winter cold on tropical beaches and in densely populated cities. >>general zachary taylor's army fought on the rio grande river and in northern mixico. i have a map here. this is where the war started and taylor is in northern mixico following this redline. >> the second front that opened after about a year was at veracruz by general winfield scott. he landed here in march 260 miles to mexico city. there were other fronts to john c fremont led fighting in california. general stephen kearney marched from kansas to santa fe to san diego and fought two nature battles outside of los angeles. a brigade of mormons that followed kearney's path nearly starved when they were fought. alexander

and tremendous expense of getting here and so on robert e lee and the statues coming down. my civil war ancestor in south carolina he died mike morris civil war soldiers of dysentery. he did his part. but the confederates you have to try to understand it on their terms. the first loyalty was to the states there are statutes first of all i tell people beware of terry down other people's statutes. some day to be back and they will tear down years. there are exceptions a brilliant tactical problem we don't need statutes. what about stonewall jackson. should we judge him sorely in the 1850s when he was thomas johnson jackson the professor he defied his neighbors with the three -- free blacks and slaves. he broke virginia law to teach blacks to read. he was regarded as the champion friend of blacks. they begged him to buy them. where conditions were much more brutal. he brought one immediately turned him loose as out waiter at the local hotel. the other one was a woman with two kids jackson often -- offered to just free her. this is the 1850s they take care of blacks. jackson fo

about it either growl he was organized to protest the removal of a statue of confederate general robert e. lee violence or rocked it in more than 30 injured in a counter protester dead. but you also had people that were. very fine people on both sides he wasn't talking about there being good people among the white supremacy and clay and there were a lot of other people who were there that were defending that monument who were the good people that were there defending the monument i'm sure that there were some people who were just history buffs i mean not everybody who thinks a monument should should stay where they are is a racist one doesn't need to be racist in order to. still be ok with a system that systematically oppresses non white groups. and that's what's affiliated with the republican party it's not that everyone in the.

how when the statue went up and it was almost the same as when united states congress made this robert e. lee memorial. the united states government put lee and jackson on a $.50 piece cannot some collectors $.50 piece but a $.50 piece that paid tribute to confederate soldiers, this gave me a chance to talk about this much broader movement in the united states as you move towards the third decade and they gave the dedicatory speech to the statue in dallas that dallas took down a few months ago. these are valuable teaching tools and are complicated in my view and that's what i get at to try to think about the memorial landscapes in ways that make them complicated. if there's one thing that you think you understand about the past i promise if you learn more about it's more complicated but we love he's a black and white and there are shades of gray in many of these questions . i thought i had to and it was my first inclination on my second and will take wonderful pictures of the main artillery at petersburg and i hated to let those go. we didn't get to the plaza although i recommended but look a

to me, there is a huge difference between a monument, say a robert e. lee sculpture with him charging on his horse, waving the confederate flag placed prominently in a town square, and the murals at george washington high school. monuments are intended to inspire and celebrate the exploits of a person, typically a man, almost always a man, and how he vanquished an enemy or conquered a new land that turned out not to be uninhabited, and monuments, that is their goal, that is their purpose. by contrast, murals like this provide a narrative, a much more complete story that often contains the good and the bad of a particular period to remind and critically inform us of this period, or in this case, the imperfect life of our first president. so while i can understand how aspects of murals are really offensive to some people, on a whole, they provide context to the people and times shown, and serve as a reminder of our greatly flawed history in a different way than a celebratory monument does. i also want to quickly address the federal art project and the adminis

when neo nazis and other alt-right followers protested of robert e. lee statue.r lost her life. she was skilled by a white supremacist. he was given life sentence for her death and injuries inflicted with others he ran down. joining us now is our executive director of civil rights advocacy organization, integrity first for america. amy, thank you for joining me. you planned an interesting opt-ed for nbc news. talk to us about this. >> a mean to combat the violence that ku klux clan members were bringing to the south after recently freed slaves were not given new that nearly 150 years later we need to use it to take on the white supremacists and hate groups responsible for orchestrating the charlottesville violence. what happened in charlottesville was not spontaneous. the violence was planned in months in advance on a chat platform these white supremacists, neo-nazis and hate groups had planned what to wear, which weapons to bring and whether they could run over protesters with cars and claim self-defense. those chats are the basis for our suit because they illus

but i made the point to file the permit that half of these people did not even know who robert e-lee was. this is the time we could come where we could all come together for what trump was talking about with nationalism and come together and to do the best we could to keep a lid on it trying to tell folks not to come just let them walk down the street and get out of town but obviously people wanted to come out because they were here on - - hearing from them that sad for charlottesville and virginia but it is a sad day for america and then when i gave my speech from those all over the globe what is going on in america? and then trump said there is good people on both sides that was a lowest point of his presidency i talk to him that day and told him what was going on. >>host: you thought you persuaded him to say the right thing thinking he understood there were people on the nazi side. >> we talked about bill clinton had issues where he went down to heal the nation when barack obama went down to heal the nation in george bush with 9/11. with these types of issues happen in the country

shell by foote and they cite a dramatic scene involving robert e. lee in the battle of gettysburg, and the mississippi unit as decimated and had lee cantorring around on his horse like -- beating his chest and saying, my fault, my fault, all my fault, my men are lost. and the historians insist there's in other reference of that anywhere, and charged to put with making it up. and then we talked briefly about this. we were talking about another book that hadn't occurred to me but that's midnight in the garden of good and evil, which was wonderful book but came in for a lot of criticism because -- >> not really nonfiction. >> it's strong suspicion a lot of it is made up. it's interesting -- >> he massaged the time frame, too. so that was the big criticism. >> yeah. >> in our case, i referenced earlier that ness had a ghost-writer write an autobiography and became the basis of the tv show and the film and that's a book the -- be published vs. of the book "the unup toables" that came out after ness died in set 57 has been dismissed in a lot of the nonfiction

just read robert e lee's letter to the secretary of war in january of 1863. lee is considered a moderate on these things. he is beside himself writing about the emancipation proclamation. he has an apocalyptic view of what the confederacy would mean because of the emancipation announced a few days earlier. peter: i would say the presence of class to censure, that it has been so diminished of late in our understanding of the confederacy. and the racial explanation -- it is obscured, some of those tensions. so again, just a move toward confederate history started back in colorado. gary: and the seeds of that book came out of the other book. he deployed that language all the time. and it seemed to me this dichotomy, you're either loyal to your state or loyal to your nation. that's how lee is often presented. our loyalty is much more complicated than that. there's also loyalty to the slaveholding south from this class, and it's that loyalty, i believe, that easily turned into loyalty to the confederacy. it's a seamless transition there, i think. peter: so, when yo

not only did thomas work closely with robert e lee but they served in the army together and unfortunately, one of their routines that was very common, especially out on the plains, were courts-martial and both thomas and lee would go from post to post in texas prior to the war and they will be involved in a number of courts-martial throughout the state of texas. a lot of movement and activity state of texas. that put them in close proximity, both virginians, both west pointers. one chooses one path and the other chooses the other. thomas was born near a town near jerusalem. george thomas and his family are there. he is not there. ultimately, he is buried in troy, new york at his wife's families plot. one of the questions about his choice for the south or the north would be what influences he might have and the question of how much his wife might influence him, francis thomas, apparently with a strong personality. he would always know what he should do. whenever your wife knows you should know what you should do, you know what she wants you to do. he made the choice. he really was comforta

eventually, the union's largest army, grant will travel with it, and they will go on to the robert e. lee army. the first two main moves in 2864 of consequence and start and early may 1864. an incredible picture of troops marching. that will result in the battle of the wilderness. a terrible thicket that would reduce the viability of grant's numbers. . they don't really matter when you cannot use cannons. the terrible place catches on fire. wounded men cannot get away. you heard the stories. after this 30,000 soldier bloodletting, the union does not do what they usually get. grant does not go back towards washington. troops are cheering him because grant will fight with his army. they are marching south. they are still continuing on even after a bloodletting like that and didn't achieve victory. >> learn about the entire civil war in 56 minutes today at 6 p.m. eastern on our weekly series on the civil war. you're watching american history tv. >> each week, american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn about american history. next, we visit the american museum of cul

charlottesville, it was almost exactly the same time that the united states congress made arlington the robert e. lee national memorial. and the same time that united states government put lee and jackson on a 50 cent piece. a real 50 cent piece, not a collector 50 cent piece. but a 50 cent piece, the reverse of which paid tribute to confederate soldiers. the lee statue gave me a chance to talk about this much broader movement in the united states. he gave the speech to the lae statue in dallas that dallas took down a few months ago. these are valuable teaching tools. they're complicated in my view. and that's why i tried to get at with this essay is to try to think about the memorial landscapes in ways that make them complicated. it's the past always is, if there is one thing that you think you understand about the past, i promise you if you learn more about it, it's more complicated than you think it was. but we love hughes of bhak and white now. there are a lot more shades of gray in many of the questions. it ended up in charlottesville. i thought i had to. not because that was my first inclinatio

do you think the rally was organized to protest the removal of a statue of confederate general robert e. lee violence or rocked it in more than 30 injured when a counter protester dead. but you also had people that were. very fine people on both sides he wasn't talking about there being good people among the white supremacy and client. there were a lot of other people who were there that were defending that monument who were the good people that were there defending the monument i'm sure that there were some people who were just history buffs i mean not everybody who thinks the monument should should stay where they are is a racist one doesn't need to be racist in order to. still be ok with a system that systematically oppresses nonwhite groups. and that's what's affiliated with the republican party it's not that everyone in the party is a racist it's that the party is not interested in addressing any type of systemic racism white voters without a college degree flocked to trump in the 2016 election partisan tensions are heightened by the fact that white americans are expected to become a mi

put but beautifully written and there are no footnotes and they cited a dramatic scene involving robert e lee at the battle of gettysburg, pickett's charge, it failed and the mississippi unit was decimated and he had the cantering around on his horse and almost like saying he's beating his chest and he saying my men are lost and the historians insist there is no other reference anywhere and charged to put with making it up and then we talked briefly about this but we were talking about another book that hadn't occurred to but that's midnight in the garden of good and evil, a wonderful book that came in for a lot of criticism because -- >> it's not nonfiction. >> there's strongsuspicion that a lot of it's made up . >> they massaged the timeframe to so that was a bigcriticism of that . >> in our case i referenced that nest cowrote or had a ghostwriter write an autobiography that became the basis of the tv show in the book that the published version of the book the untouchable which came out after nest died in 1957 has been sort of disparaged and dismissed and a lot of the nonfiction writing abo

the letters of a man to his wife as the new yorker schoolteacher turned map maker to robert e. lee, the letters were never transskrieped. and hundreds of other letters and diaries on both sides that found in people's attics -- we didn't find them. they knew they were in the attics and they brought them down for us to scan and contribute, and two newspapers in both places arguing with each other every day. now, it's hard to imagine, but as we go back to the civil war era, both back them argued about politics a lot. and said really hard things about each other. i just don't want anybody to be shocked when they understand that's what politics in america used to be like. as i was working through all of this, and really, it's millions of pieces of evidence. i could see that a story was not merely a convenient and compelling way to explain things, but that a story explains things that just analysis as we call it cannot. stories embody the central traits of historical understanding, change. conflict. complexity. contingency in ways that simply saying hey, that's complicated doesn't do it.

when robert e. lee marches into pennsylvania, even as he is scampering back to virginia having had half his army destroyed, he takes time to capture free blacks in pennsylvania and drag them back to the south and sell them as slaves. when he invaded maryland, he did the same for free blacks in maryland. maryland is a slave state but half the black people in maryland are free by the time of the war. the south is committing war crimes but we don't prosecute anybody except captain wartz for andersonville. i want to give you a very quick supreme court history. i don't want to go into the details of cases. if anybody wants i'm happy to give you suggestions. i suppose i would say the first place to start is a book called "the march of liberty," a two volume constitutional history of the united states. but i'm the co-author of that book and that would be shameless self-promotion and i would not want anybody to accuse me of that. i will add that my books are out with harvard university press, again, i'm shamele