Conversations; 201; Civil War Authors

[Music] [Music] [Music] Hello again. I'm Gene Nichols {?}. Let's face it. You slept through history class. Millions of us did. We made our poor teachers crazy. We got out of school knowing barely enough to get through the finals and then something remarkable happened. We got hooked on the Civil War. We watched PBS and Ken Burns and we went to Vicksburg and to Shiloh. J. Stephen Lang and Michael Caplanis got hooked too on the characters of the war and they put together 64 biographies, half from each side, to tell some of those great stories and they are here for tonight for a conversation about "Drawn to the Civil War". Welcome, glad to have you both. Thanks Gene. How did this happen? How did you get hooked, the two of you? Well, uh, the idea for the book actually came about because, uh, I was - erm- I work in Washington D.C. is- in advertising

and, um, I also own a country inn just outside of Washington in Winchester, in the northern Shenandoah Valley, which is the crucible of the Civil War - we like to think of that up there in Virginia. You may think that [laughter]. We have a little different opinion perhaps down here. But, uh, in order to relax now I have, uh-uh, a degree in painting. and, um, in order to relax, I started doing some of these caricatures of the - uh - of these - of these - uh notable types from the Civil War and, um, they started to pile up and I thought this might make a good book. And, um, I got in touch with Steven. He, uh, had written some 18 books and he was, uh, many of them trivia books. He was obviously a, uh, master of, uh, arcane knowledge about - uh - about the characters such as these and I thought, uh, I'd seek him out and I did. And he had the time and the opportunity, and, uh, we began to collaborate. We've only met face-to-face three times. This is the, only the third time we've actually ever - Really? - seen each other. But, uh - Are you getting along? Very well. [laughter] Very well, yeah. We sure are.

So, uh, were- were you good at Trivial Pursuit and those kind a things? Always, you know, always watched Jeopardy, and I grew up Southern. We have a take on these things. So, where did you grow up? Northern Alabama. Mhmm. And I was living in Richmond when, um, Mike approached me and said whould I'd be interested in doing the book, for doing research, and picking up little odds and ends about people. Richmond is probably the best place in the world. These, uh uh, people I- I was fascinated bec- by it because we don't often see the warts on these people - Mhmm - this way. We don't see the sense of humor in these people. We don't see all of these all of these characteristics. Is that what fascinated you? Yeah. Take somebody like Lee who was on the cover. Um, Lee is probably one of the most admired men in American history. I mean admired globally, in fact. And, you know, they have him down as a great soldier, um uh, Christian, a gentleman, the faithful

husband, uh. All those nice things, which are all true, I mean that's that's the real Lee, but at- But what else? - Yeah, well it was like the Paul Harvey, uh, "The Rest of the Story" thing. Well, tell me about Lee. Well, there wasn't a lot on him. Some of the other characters, uh, they had, they were all quirks, uh. They were fun, but, uh, Lee, I had to dig. One of my favorite Lee stories is, uh, he was a father and when his children were young, they did the kid thing and said Daddy tell us a story. And he said sure but they had to tickle his feet first. So he would put his bare feet up in their laps and say "No tickling, no story." Now, if you look at any picture of Lee or statue, you know, he's this dignified looking person. You can't picture him with his shoes off, much less being tickled. [laughter] But I think that it gives you a little insight. He was a human being, not a statue. It's probably- uh I was just going to add to that, and I think Steven would agree that

Lee was so tough to find anything on, it was the thing that was probably most notable about Lee was his straight arrowness. When he left for the fight in the Mexican War, he took with him as part of his kit, a flask of brandy. When he came back two years later the brandy was untouched. So that's that's one of the things that I would say is most notable about him. Did you know these things when you began to do the caricatures? I knew many of them. I'm a big trivia fan too. We collaborated on many of the stories, some of the things that we would we would toss in and toss out, decide that one story was better than another. But yeah, I mean there's one that that didn't make it into the book. We couldn't really attribute and this was about Lincoln. He, as you know, he was a big theater fan and he loved the theater. Ultimately that was his downfall, of course, we know that, but he he just seen a play at some point and the play, this particular play, had gotten questionable reviews in the paper and a reporter collared

him as as it was coming out and wanted to know his opinion and he thought for a second and said, and this is remarkable the fact that he really said this sounds more like Yogi Berra than it does Abe Lincoln, he thought for a second and he said "People who like this sort of thing will find that it's just the sort of thing they like. [laugh] Well it's, ah that that sounds, it certainly sounds like Lincoln, certainly sounds like Lincoln the politician, ah saying nothing. I love the story that you had in the book about Lincoln when someone was commenting about, ah how ugly he was or how two faced he was. Yeah, if I had two faces would I be wearing this one. Yeah You brought along some of the... some of the images from from the collection. Let's put some of these up. OK. Maybe you can tell me some stories and then we'll get into some of the other stories in a minute. Ah, this that's ah, that's Jeb Stuart. Begin with Jeb Stuart. Yeah, yeah... ah, he was kind of un.. unremarkable of countenance you could say and the thing that was most remarkable about him was his beard. You know obviously I've exaggerated it a bit, it is...it is, was, was not quite that big but

I'm I'm sure that he if he could have grown a beard that big...that cava... it was a classic cavalier style beard that he, that he grew in order to..ah...ah mimic French cavaliers of the 15th century and with the mustaches like that building out waiting and he did pull them out that far and grow them out just as far as he could. It's that is a little extra What is it that fascinated you about him. Stuart was all fascination, a... practically every aspect of his life. Ah... When the war started he took the Confederate side his father in law was a noted Union general. So there was a serious split in the family. Stuart and his wife had named their son after the father in law and ah couldn't have that so he changed the son's name to Jeb Jr. didn't want him named after Yankee heaven forbid. And on and on and on. Yeah. And when I say the war was brother against brother it was true, or father against the son in law. It truly was. Ah, another....

Another image that came from your collection from this from this from this book. Who is this character. That's that's Winfield Scott. He's a man of great courage. He was he was the commander of the Union forces at the beginning of the war it didn't last very long with Stephen. And what's happened what happened to him. He was literally too big to lead an army. Yeah,seriously he was about 300 pounds he needed assistance to mount a horse and loved to eat as you can tell by the picture you can tell. Been around for a long time he fought in the War of 1812 and was one of the great heroes of the Mexican War had been a presidential candidate. But interestingly enough to from Virginia but did not take the southern side . When the war began it was obvious they needed a younger and more able man to lead the Union forces so Scott was kind of eased out of office.

There was a great debate in the control room before this program began that that he was someone else that he was in fact the general who was in New Orleans for,....Ben Butler. Then I heard a bit of that yeah yeah the scourge of New Orleans is in the book too but he's not ahh... That was not him. He was not quite that big. Not quite that big. What's your favorite Ben Butler story? Oh there are so many. My favorite and I, I think it's true is that the people of New Orleans I should mention he was the occupying Union general there. So they despised him just for dominating them. But they said that they painted his picture on the bottoms of chamber pots which was the ultimate degradation. This is the next image in the collection out of the book, this is, a this is That's Roger Taney. The Supreme Court justice, the chief justice of the Supreme Court he's the man responsible for handing down the Dred Scott decision. Kind of a sanguine fellow. He, he looks as if he were ah...um...guzzled vinegar or something like that

and um... but he was actually a very mild tempered sweet guy and a strict interpreter of the Constitution it wasn't his desire he certainly saw the irony of that decision that he was handing down which was basically that Dred Scott was not a man, three quarters of a man and could not sue his master. But but nonetheless the Constitution was an open ended question at that point on these on these points and he he did what he thought was right at that time. What was your feeling about him as you researched him? Well it was strange, here was a Supreme Court decision that in effect said black Americans are not citizens they're not in the fullest sense of the word human. I...We hear that and think that's horrifying. And yet the man who did that..ah... wasn't racist in the normal sense of the term he was just as you said interpreting the Constitution. Taney actually freed his own slaves. He'd been raised on a plantation with slaves but, [crosstalk] a tobacco plantation, but a

released his own and everybody that knew him he was a very saintly person married to the sister of Francis Scott Key had that nice patriotic connection but a kind of forgotten character and certainly one that was very important for this period. He died while the war was on and Lincoln was frankly very happy to see him go. Who were the characters you found in your research that you said, ah, we've, we've got to put this guy in the book because people don't know about him or this lady in the book. Well there was I think Rose Greenhow [crosstalk], Rose Greenhow was incredible. Hollywood's got to do a movie about her. Tell me about her. She was a spy for the South. She was living in D.C.. You want to get information out of federal politicians that's obviously the best place to be may have been the mistress of one of the Northern senators we're not sure. Close friend anyway, [crosstalk] John Breckenridge, and ah

She was very good at passing on information to the south. She had a network of women mostly sort of lower class servant type women, ah, people that would go unnoticed. They could slip through the detectives and she passed on a lot of information to the southern military. The curious thing was the Lincoln administration finally just booted her out we said we can't have her living here in Washington. So she went south. The Confederate Government Center to Europe as a kind of a diplomat and she came back to the south on a ship carrying a load of money literally chained to which had this enormous bag of gold sort of strapped to herself wouldn't let it out of her sight. And it happened that she was on a boat that capsized and she drowned because she was literally weighted down by the gold [crosstalk] by the gold was bringing back,[crosstalk] good story. for the Confederacy. And you had another spy another female spy in the book who was a spy for the North, who was that? She was like the

counterpart of Rose Greenhow, her name was Elizabeth Van Lew and she lived in Richmond and she,...[crosstalk] Dizzy Lizzie. Dizzy Lizzie, Dizzy Lizzie and she was spying for the Union government in Richmond. She actually had a servant a black woman who worked in the Jefferson Davis home part time and supposedly was illiterate, although she wasn't, and she would pass information from Jefferson Davis's own lips to Elizabeth Van Lew which made it sway back to the north. She was also.... She'd pass herself off as someone who was a, ah a little deficient in the mental department, she would walk through the streets of Richmond and babble to herself, there was, there was a mob boss a few years ago, Vincent, The Chin, Gigante remember the stories about him? He a...she was kind of the female equivalent of that, as a diversion she would, she would, she would pass yourself off as someone, ah, not all quite there.

How do you research those people? How do you research those kinds of people? How do you find out about[them?]? Part of it is just reading the best biographies by the historians and regrettably they leave out some of the juicy details which is what we're trying to do in our book here. [yeah]. But I was living in Richmond one of the reasons I knew about Elizabeth Van Lew is that a lot of the local historians knew about her and they talked about Crazy Bett, Dizzy Lizzy. I mention her to Mike the first time and he said, who is she? I said oh you've got to hear about her. I hadn't known anything at all about her. And we have kind of a agreement among between the two of us that the rule for who would go into the book would depend on whether or not they were an interesting enough looking character and it was an interesting enough story, it had to balance out that way balance out that way in order to make it happen. And so who else made the list like that that we might not have known about before. Oh George Thomas was interesting, [crosstalk] {inaudible-sounds like Pat} Thomas another Virginian. He was Virginian but he went with the North. His sisters in Virginia took his portrait

turned it facing the wall. They disowned him. You're not part of the family anymore. The Rock of Chickamauga, that was his a, that was his sobriquet. The next image from from the collection from the book. Ah, well that's Sherman, boy we know this guy don't we? We know this guy especially in Mississippi, we know him. It was tough to do too. He took ah, he had, he has a very elusive personality they didn't want to like play kind of through it. Probably tried him four five times before I got something I was satisfied with. I think you got him. Yeah, he was a redhead, fiery redhead and it doesn't come through in black and white photographs obviously. But ah, he was a very complex man, he truly was. Was he as hard to draw, or emotionally... [crosstalk] Oh yeah he was a man who suffered from nervous breakdowns and one thing and another... and ah, Steven can... What fascinated you about him? I was fascinated, I mean I was brought up to hate him, I'm a Southerner you know what would you expect?

But he was a very tender person. He wrote these loving letters to his wives and children while the war was on and he was wreaking havoc through the south. He wrote a letter to his daughter saying I regret having to do this to people that are our brothers. You wouldn't think Sherman would have written something like that. His name is interesting too. We know him as William Tecumseh Sherman. When he was born his family named him Tecumseh after the great, a Indian leader, unusual name at the time and he was known always as Cump or Cumpy. His wife would write letters, Dear Cumpy and when he was baptized as a boy the minister who baptized and said Tecumseh is a pagan name we better give them a Christian name too. So he was baptizied William Tecumseh Sherman. You know in spite of his reputation that he has in the south apparently earned a lot of affection among people even people in the South when he

when he died. Um, ah General Joe Johnston who led the Confederate forces early on, he ah, he ah served as a pall bearer at his funeral and refused to cover his head, a month later he was dead from pneumonia. Ah Jefferson Davis and his wife. Oh, fascinating couple. He was a good bit older than her. He had married the daughter of Zachary Taylor who had been president. Ah, she died. He married Varina. I love that name. And she was actually young enough to be his daughter. And on their honeymoon he took Varina to visit the grave of his first wife. Quite romantic. [laughter] Had to set the tone... [crosstalk] Yeah indeed. Could she really forge his name? That's what they said. He he had a lot of health problems then and was extremely busy and stressed and in times of getting in a hurry she would forge a signature. I think Wilson probably had the same kind of relationship with his wife Edith Gault Wilson, she was... almost served as a de facto president during his after his first

stroke during his administration. And so what happened to her? Varina? She lived on...um... a good while after he died. At the end of her life she was living in New York and she wrote an article on the humanity of Grant which I think given that she had been the first lady of the Confederacy shows a certain broadmindedness. I was fascinated by the research that you did into John Wilkes Booth. Oh....uh[crosstalk]...ah who must also have been one of your favorites to study, not because of what he did but because he was such an interesting character, had no idea he was so athletic. Very. and just totally despised Lincoln. Supposedly he could leap over a five foot piece of stage scenery that was that kind of athleticism was his. what was how he was known, as a matter of fact. He was a member of course of the in the famous Booth acting family and the Booth had been English.

He was only a second generation American. They were like all theater people, they traveled around they weren't really identified with a place. And yet he told everybody he was a Southerner to his heart. And he said Lincoln is a tyrant, he's a baboon, a guerrilla, make a list of names and of course in the end he hatched a plot to kill him. In a theater. But the original plot was to, was to kidnap him wasn't it? That was...ah, that was one of them. In the final plot they had planned to kill Lincoln, Vice-President Andrew Johnson, and Seward the Secretary of State and um, some of Booth's conspirators chickened out at the last minute. One of them did try to kill Seward, but um, of course we all know the story about that play Our American Cousin and rather tragic ending to it. And... and he knew the place so well that he, he had it timed perfectly didn't he? And apparently at the time that he shot Lincoln and jumped onto the stage.

not everyone knew what had happened, they thought it was part of the play [crosstalk]...yeah part of the whole thing. Because he was such a familiar character to the theater goers they...they...they knew him as the actor and not.... Right. [crosstalk]...not suspecting. And he jumped down from the box and broke his leg and limped across the stage and all very dramatic of course. We've left out some of the major players here we haven't talked about Robert E. Lee. Oh we talked about his foot tickling. That's...yup, we talked just a bit about it. [crosstalk] And we haven't talked...uh much about people like Rose O'Neill and Benjamin Butler. Ben Butler was the scourge of New Orleans. Yes he was. And Rose O'Neill Noted spy. Stonewall Jackson, ah....probably my favorite character one of the most familiar. Um....all the quirks and odddities just so much fun. Hypochondriac. Always thought his health was failing. A health faddist long before.....[cosstalk] fitness fanatic

Before everyone else was. Wouldn't eat most food usually ate brown bread and water and had a very boring diet. So when you had him over for a dinner party. [laughter] He would eat nothing. He'd drink water. Ah...ah...it was as close as he could get to ah politeness. He would only take in a little water and ah, and eat before coming because he just couldn't trust whatever it was that anyone was serving him. And of course people ask him about it and he would say things like the moment a grain of pepper touches my tongue I lose all the feeling in my right leg. A strange looking man, I mean he...he rode a horse smaller than most others. I mean he...he....a, his legs would dangle low on the horse and he didn't care much about spit and polish and that sort of thing. But his ah...his troops followed him, loved him and they caught his passion. But he was a, he was.... was, but one story that it goes was that he, he couldn't...he was physically incapable of laughter.

The closest he could get to laughing was to, when he found something genuinely funny he would throw back his head and quiver and that's that was about it. Hard to imagine how such a man could could curry such a following, but he did. Mary Todd Lincoln, we haven't talked much about, she was, how much... how much smaller was she in terms of height than... [crosstalk] she was tiny. Of course he was well over six feet. She was [crosstalk]...about five one maybe, barely five yeah..yeah. And she was slightly plump. Beautiful woman when she was very much younger. [crosstalk] That was for the time. Yeah [crosstalk]...wasn't...yeah yeah. And a tragic person too. I mean she suffered so much. Abe suffered of course as much as she did, they lost the most of their children. And and it was, each time that would happen it would leave a mark on her soul and ah, she eventually retired to a couple of rooms in her home long after Abe died. She spent some time in

an asylum. Yeah she sure did. She sure did. And it just wore wore her down. And it's a really sad story. It's a funny thing about the Lincolns too. Lincoln is famous as the poor kid who made good, no education, became president. The American public likes to elect people like that. You know here was Illinois still kind of a frontier at that time. He was a country bumpkin who makes good. Once they got to Washington they had to endure what every first couple does. They got criticism right and left. They couldn't do anything right. They were considered bumpkins, they made fun of Mary's clothes, her hats. They didn't like his sense of humor. Notes?? that he was vulgar, said he was low class. It was all a very carefully, um, crafted persona for him. He was actually a very successful railroad lawyer and made a very good living in the years before the White House.

But, ah, that, that bumpkin appeal ....well know that today. That's not all that unusual to to to to appear to be populist a man of the people as opposed to a slick, ah Washington type. We've seen that. We've seen that work before. Certainly have. Tell me as you did your research, the both of you, what what was it that surprised you? What were the moments of detective work where you looked up and said Oh I did know that? I've gotta tell.... [crosstalk] Something that kept jumping out at me was after the War the Confederate generals who had survived it felt like they had to justify themselves and so they wrote memoirs. Some of them did it under their own name and there was one that Beauregard who was, ah extremely egotistical. He actually wrote his own memoirs, published them under someone else's name so it would look like someone else was praising him. But what came through in all of this memoir writing was how petty men can be, ah

laying the blame on each other, saying it wasn't my fault it was someone else's. And just the incredible ego that comes through from all of this. I think probably the thing that [sigh] amazes me...I don't know if it amazed me most during the writing or the researching of the book but the thing that amazes me most is how this this conflict is not done and how it's, ah, it's the part of our remote history that we can still touch. I mean it brushes up against popular culture which is something we can all understand there's a there's a story of the last reunion of, ah, civil war veterans at, ah, Gettysburg in 1938. There were events planned over the course of the three days of the battle, the battle took place over the, over a July 4th weekend when it was originally fought in '63. And, um on this particular July 4th weekend there were as I said there were events planned all through throughout all three days and there was one event that was

planned for eight o'clock at night on a Saturday and a big uproar on the part of all these veterans, these old grizzled veterans of the Civil War didn't want to, ah.... insisted that this particular event I forget what it was that get moved back to another hour later on because these old guys these old guys well into their late 90s and 2nd century they didn't want to miss Amos and Andy on the radio. Which is just about, I mean.... Here's the past, here's the present, [crosstalk]...oh,.. and they just touch you know and we can all understand. Fascinating work that you've done. It's called "Drawn to the Civil War", Steven Lang and Michael Caplanis, thank you. Thank you, Gene Good luck. Thanks very much...Thanks. And thank you, see you next time. Well. Well well.