lee and stonewall jackson. lee emerges from this period as a much more celebrated and famous and better known, right? famous or infamous, depending upon how you look at his figure. >> better known, yeah. >> but jackson today is not really as widely known, which is why i think it's so interesting that you gravitated there as a subject. why has jackson not been -- why is he not better known? >> i think there were things that overshadowed him. history sort of moved beyond him in some ways. let me give you a really good example of this. you mentioned he dies. so he gets shot by his own men. this is completely accidental and, again, bad staff work that anybody was out there for that to happen. and then he contracts pneumonia and dies. what happens then is absolutely extraordinary. it's the first great outpouring of grief for a fallen leader in american history. >> history, right. >> and i said american history. i didn't say confederate history. >> right. >> the fallen leaders, so to speak, of the founding fathers we

lee, not stonewall jackson, but james longstreet, lee's honorable -- well, not so honorable in the lost cause, core commander at gettysburg and throughout the war. longstreet, it will be his fault that gettysburg didn't turn out the way it was. after all, longstreet was in charge of the men, he's the next guy on the totem pole, like the ceo deciding he's not going to resign but blaming the vice president and throw him under the bus. it also hurt poor james longstreet that he was a republican and he actually got a position during the grant administration so he may not have been politically aligned with many individuals who were thinking about the lost cause. i think this in many ways becomes the struggle for historians going forward in that the lost cause doesn't have a lot of room for injured veterans, for distraught widows, for orphaned children. when you would have these organizations sort of spring up, they would put in their mission statements like the united confederate veterans that they were all about raising money to take care of that generation that had been destroyed by the wa

lee and stonewall jackson who will appear on all of these monuments. we're not going to celebrate those other confederate generals who didn't do quite well. you're going to see a lot of accolades. oh, let's put john bill hood on great big confederate monuments. it will emphasize the honorable noble lee and jackson, who died in the war giving a limb for the cause and robert e. lee who was overwhelmed by superior number. it makes them in many ways larger than life. dominant figures that dominated post war period. this becomes the cause if you will. veteran props -- veteran troops like the united confederate veterans will be like the text books. they will get angry at their yankee publishers and want their side written when southern children learn about the war. they're going to blame not robert e. lee not stonewall jackson but james longstreet. core commander at gettisburg throughout the war. it will be his fault that gettiesburg didn't turn out the way he wanted. it's like the ceo deciding that he's not going to resign bah blames the vice president and

he's the best selling author of acclaimed books about quanah, parker and stonewall jackson. former, a finalist for the pulitzer prize, both finalists for the national book critics circle. he's s.c. gwynne, this is "overheard." [applause]. >> actually, there are not two sides to every issue. >> so i guess we can't fire him now. >> i guess we can't fire him now.

kinda what i expected, stonewall jackson.ur panel, a man who respects the integrity of the game so much that he got caught corking his bat, mr. sammy sosa. mr. sosa has prepared a statement. [ clears throat ] "sammy very happy to be here. "sammy love play baseball game. "him hit ball very far. "him run the bases very fast." i hit the ball. [ laughter and applause ] mr. canseco, let's start with you. your book was very much the catalyst for this investigation, yet some see you as less than reliable. why should we believe you? hey, look at me. what's not to trust? i'm starved for publicity, i have almost no money left,

lee, stonewall jackson and going to mcarthur and patton.the generals, american generals are -- have very rich personalities. but when you bring it today, they don't stand out as conspicuously as they did in history. how do you explain that and how does that affect our military? >> you ought to give that a try, professor. >> tough one. >> i'm not sure i understand the that the generals today don't have the same kind of image and the colorful -- >> yes. >> well, the civil war and world war ii, the generals, the two wars that you mentioned the generals were in, were the two biggest wars that this country ever fought. and so they are going to throw to the surface these dominant personalities, but now with brush fire wars and minor wars and nothing anywhere remotely similar to the scale of the civil war or world war ii, you are not going to have these people being thrown to the surface. >> you had iraq that lasted a long time. you had vietnam. >> but iraq, 5,000 or 6,000 american soldiers died in iraq. 750,000 died in the civil war. 500,000 died

and of course the story of stonewall jackson at the first manassas. what kind of tales do we have that touch upon the things we're discussing today? reconstruction and the ugliness of it. i think those things lie largely outside of the american iliad. these are stories that we do not mythic in a mythical or kind of way. the exception to this would be sherman's marches. people do know about the raising of the shenandoah valley. s was right tor quote the importance. but people know anything about what i call the heart operations of the civil war, it is the march to the sea. ad we all know that it was march, 220 miles from atlanta to savannah, 60 miles wide. in which the troops destroyed absolutely everything in their path. folklore is a thriving business in georgia there to explain why, given that this occurred, why the particular in, that so and so lives why that particular town was spared, when every other town was annihilated. usuallye folklore tales have something to do with sherman had an old girlfriend in town, maybe. he was a mason. and someone g

we will give you the embodiments of robert e lee and stonewall jackson. we will not necessarily celebrate the other confederate generals who did not do quite as well. you will not see a lot of accolades of john bell hood on great big confederate monuments. you will not see those efforts. instead, they will emphasize the honorable lee and jackson. jackson who died in the war giving a limb for the cause and robert e lee who was overwhelmed by superior numbers. it makes them larger in -- larger than life. this becomes the cause. veterans groups are going to be all about the textbook battles. they will get berry angry at those yankee publishers -- and they will want their side of the story to be written. other organizations will honor the graves of the dead or give long tactical speeches figuring out why the lost south the war and they will usually blame, not robert e. lee or jackson but james long street. core commander at gettysburg. longstreet was in charge of pickets men. the next guy on the totem pole. it also hurt for longstreet that he was a republican

lee, stonewall jackson and going to mcarthur and patton.the generals, american generals are -- have very rich personalities. but when you bring it today, they don't stand out as conspicuously as they did in history. how do you explain that and how does that affect our military? >> you ought to give that a try, professor. >> tough one. >> i'm not sure i understand the that the generals today don't have the same kind of image and the colorful -- >> yes. >> well, the civil war and world war ii, the generals, the two wars that you mentioned the generals were in, were the two biggest wars that this country ever fought. and so they are going to throw to the surface these dominant personalities, but now with brush fire wars and minor wars and nothing anywhere remotely similar to the scale of the civil war or world war ii, you are not going to have these people being thrown to the surface. >> you had iraq that lasted a long time. you had vietnam. >> but iraq, 5,000 or 6,000 american soldiers died in iraq. 750,000 died in the civil war. 500,000 died