. >> stewart jackson, thank you, mr. chairman. >> once we welcome the appointmentst special envoy to the syrian opposition, will that necessarily lead to the establishment of the contact group with the syrian national council and the syrian free army and the individuals in lieu of the establishment of free democratic government? >> we have to find out how much the opposition groups develop. i stress that the contact is with those advocating peaceful action. we have not had contact with the free syria army which is in a different position. >> stephen gilbert? >> mr. speaker, in his statement to my honorable friend mentioned the possibility of securing a resolution of the united nations general assembly as a way of tack thlg issue. can i ask him what assessment has been made of the possibility of that and what time line he might be expecting to operate? >> well, we're still making an assessment for that. clearly, i was own on saturday that the resolutions vetoed and the security council. general assembly resolution does no

jackson, mississippi. archibald, go ahead with your comments or question? >> and southern virginia right where jeff stewart was born. by the grace of god i'm a virginian. he came back and married a southern bell from virginia and it was concerned by this last caller, jennifer to equate, with the example of the education system and i want to see what you think of this to where she either does not understand or does not know that the north and the south made a lot of money off of slavery and the west coast of africa. >> we'll let professor thomas respond. >> i think lee was as racist as most people were. they thought there were different races and white folks like himself, and he measured race in terms of white folks like himself who was an important factor. he was -- in terms of individuals, thoughtful and kind to everyone and that included african-americans. he thought slavery was upon it, but always in the abstract. he really thought that god and god's wisdom would resolve the issue, and it was enough to he -- robert e. lee to do that much about it for which we could fault him, i think. i think the assump

bring stonewall jackson's very effective but still rather small force from the shenandoah valley to reinforce the defenses of richmond, that he would send his young cavalry chief jeb stewart on a reconnaissance that two inform him as to the extent and location of the mcclellan's union forces and having done all that he initiated the series of pounding, direct, and very, very bloody assaults aimed at pushing the union forces away. on the 26th of june, beaver dam creek near mechanicsville, 27th of june gaines million. 29th of june, savages station. 30th of june, glendale. and finally, on the 1st of july, the terrible battle at malverne hill. 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

stewart's dramatic ride around mcclellan, the raid in june 12-15, 12th through the 15th of 1862. and he's going to fall upon mcclellan's flank with 45,000 troops. and then he's going to bring jackson in from the valley with 20,000 more to attack mcclellan's rear. here is this guy, 200 soldiers at harper's ferry and now he's commanding, add all that up. 25,000, 47,000, 20,000, 92,000 people. and, by god, it worked, from a limited perspective anyway. mcclellan was halted, embarrassed and overrun, at least on his flank at gaines mill and lost his nerve and called for a change of base, which sounded like a skedaddle. a withdrawal to the james river, and lee followed. in his general order, he wrote on thursday, june 26th, the powerful and thoroughly equipped army of the enemy was entrenched in works vast and extent and most formidable in character within the sight of our capital. today the remains of that confident and threatening host lie upon the banks of the james river, 30 miles -- that's a little bit -- more like 23, i think. 30 miles from richmond, seeking to recover under the protection of its gunboats from the effects of the series of disastrous defeats. that's a little hyperbo