>> starting now on american history tv, it's the recent pamplin historical park civil war symposium. over the next several hours civil war scholars will discuss a range of topics but first it's a look at the mississippi homefront during the civil war with university of southern mississippi professor susannah ural. >> i i want to get right to our speaker. we are so happy to have susannah ural here, and she's been so gracious to come in with, coming in and actually getting our first speech tonight. susannah ural is professor of history and codirector of the dale center for the study of or in society at the university of southern mississippi, scholar of war and society, she's a author of numerous books and articles on the u.s. civil war era, including the latest monograph hoods texas brigade which we just talked about today at seven days. soldiers and families of the

confederacies most celebrated unit here for latest work is grounded in the growing field of digital humanities are some very pleased to introduce susannah ural. [applause] >> thanks, everybody. it is good to be back. thank you for that wonderful welcome and for having me. y'all, this is -- i'm out of breath this is awesome, a room full of people and i've got to get a powerpoint going. i just want to thank you. we will not talk about what technology issues i did or did not come slightly ill prepared on. that chris and the c-span crew bailed me out. so thank you. it's good to see y'all. i'm good to start my time in a because i'm going to be having so much fun that i might not stop talking. and i promise to try and be is emerging as a they have said you very well which is a cruel thing

to do to a speaker. so for those of you might start dozing in the back, i'll call on you or something. i'm talking tonight about a project that i just started, and us walking in a tie describe it to will green who is a good friend, not an old friend, good friend, who first will reay introduced me to this wonderful place here and it's really kind of ongoing project. usually when a talk with groups like y'all i can have them this book is out and it's all beautifully package. i really want to do here tonight is talking about something that i'm finding in the ideas i have and then you know pokes some holes in it, people. tell me what you think might be wrong, you think might be right. so what i'm talking about as you can see on the screen is this question of dissent and why it matters in wars on the homefront and how it can impact in particular the confederate war

efforts. so when we think about dissent in the civil war, these are probably some of the issues, some of the images i should say that might come to my pick you might think about the riots. if you know anything about that trans-mississippi west you might think this hang a gainesville sometimes called the great texas hanging of these suspected unions and traded to the confederacy or become for my neck of the woods in mississippi you might know about new nights and the free state of jones orderlies matthew mcconaughey and the free state of jones, right? history to talk about this questions of dissent and did the confederacy really kind of collapse from within? does have anything do with the union army, you need forces that might actually some a good of what they're doing or was it really just this kind of overwhelming collapse from within, that killed the confederacy, if you will? what i'm doing is exploring this

question using this project that i'm leading retina called the civil war and reconstruction governors of mississippi. how many guys that have worked in governors records in the 19th century? let me put it this way. the historians all raised their hand, yes. bad question mark i should've asked better. other red confederate reckoning where she talks about getting into these governors records and hearing from these templates of everyday people. they can search americans broke the governors like we use social media day or some people use social media today. what i'm doing -- no, what this team you see here is doing, it's the state archives who already hold the governors papers for all of the time of civil and reconstruction for the state of mississippi, and we are taking these records where you can you from just about everybody in mississippi. i really didn't. think about like social media what people do cite other manners and they just spew forth use of things they're angry about. nobody writes this as you doing

a great job, love you. it's usually, kind of skewed. there usually upset but were working with the state archives for digitizing all these records and then mississippi digital library were putting all these documents up freely available online, no subscription, no pay wall. the group i laid in history program at the university seven mississippi are transcribing providing enhanced subject tagging of these. when you see these documents i'll be showing today, just clips, i promise i will not throw all documents up on screen, if you see things underline company to go to the website and click on it, others words if it's a letter from ellisville mississippi, , you gt every other document from ellisville. if you have an ancestor and click on the same go find any the document related to him. you have digitized original documents, transcriptions, the

tagging we got all sorts of things to help you through it with lesson plans and all sorts of goodies. it's 20,000 20,000 docum. read the first 3000 up. 17,000 to go, but we did the first 3000 in the year and it was in the year of covid. so it's not bad. we are definitely making progress but it's a big collection is what to think about it as one big collection because i wanted people to study the entirety of the civil war and the period of occupation and reconstruction that too often people stop their civil war studies and don't really go through that extended period. i'm using these letters tonight to kind of explore this question of dissent and unionism. like i mention you will hear from young and old, men and women, blacks and whites, rich, middle, poor, people from rural and urban areas and we can show people the governors responses. let's get back to dissent.

when we think about dissent in the civil war era usually the examples that come to mind a point at something to do with conscription. yet this wonderful cartoon kind of portraying confederate conscription is almost european forcing them into service. this is that something americans do and this is not democratic. there's all these issues that come with conscription compass question of it is a rich man's war but but a poor man's fid does it create dissent on homefront. we also most to you heard about the homefront pressures, , letts from women to soldiers in the field saying things like look i do know what you're doing but you need to come home because we can't get the cropping and if we don't get the crop in nobody's going to eat and the cow is sick. one problem after another saying your issues are here. you will see things in these letters where women will be writing to the governor. you will also have semi literate or even illiterate people have people write to the governor

under behalf and make their mark on these letters saying things like what we had a deal. you would provide for the soldiers families if my husband went to war. those types of issues. that's what i mean about homefront pressures. emancipation, is this something that broke down the homefront? as enslaved people start to leave and run away, as they self emancipate, rushed to union forces is this causing a massive breakdown on the confederate hope for? finally the question of war wariness such as happened in times of war. what you should be, scratch your head thinking is how much of the stuff just always happens? usually there's an amount of dissent in everything. pick up the newspaper from today. somebody would be dissenting that something, , it's what we . it's part of your citizenship. war wariness, i think after the gears of iraq and afghanistan we know something about war wariness.

some of this is always going to be a part of this. the question is when does the become so problematic that it will contribute to the military defeat of the confederacy? the other thing i want you to think about is what's the difference between dissent as opposed to true unionism, as opposed to actually supporting the federal cause as a white mississippi and/or as black mississippian? and what does that do to that confederate war effort? some of the things we don't always think about when we think about the civil war era mississippi are guys like william rowland who at the beginning of the war refused to support the confederacy, refused to serve in any capacity. he's from north mississippi. and then when conscription was passed as you can see, nope, i forwarded my slight. now you can see it in yours. william rowland flied out says i

wasn't going to get conscripted because i won't serve and the confederacy so they found a federal unit. he and his family members found a confederate union and elicited my favorite part of this document y'all it disappears in august 18 city five in the governors papers because william rowland is being required to take an amnesty advocates required to pledge his loyalty to the united states government and he's writing to the governor of mississippi and saint ives spot for the government for the last three years. there's this great light at the bottom of the letter it says please send information on the subject of what it takes to constitute a loyal citizen after he spells out from 62 62 to i served in the illinois, 11 illinois cavalry. this is what i mean when i say this is more than dissent. this this is a clear examplee mississippian who in this case in the very beginning not a new

night example where originally was kind of serving for the confederacy but later chose to resist it. william rowland is an example of some of these who are firm unionists and take up arms serving a federal cause. either way you'll see my note at the top of the screen. the quote you always hear -- [inaudible] see, , i told you i was out of practice. the quote you always hear is about five and a white mississippians served in the federal forces did the problem with that is that only counts the one mississippi battalion that was organized as federal unit. doesn't count like william rowland. you'll find these folks and all sorts of other state units. my problem with counting them as being a massive factor within the state of mississippi, okay, maybe it's that twice at me or three times.

that will still owing the 1500 guys. i don't know if only enough to make a difference. what i'm starting to get curious about are the african-americans who are from mississippi and begin the estimates in the high 17 thousands, probably more who will join the union army and navy during really starting by 63 right after emancipation and make a major contribution. one of the things we're going to talk about later tonight is how we are exploring that contribution and the ways that i think maybe some more of the questions we should ask. we've got this question of dissent and how big of a problem is dissent going to be for the confederacy? using mississippi as a case study. now we have examples of what i consider clear unionism where you are so loyal to the union you're going to take up arms and fight for it. let's use these documents and peace some of us together and

look, take mississippi as this case study and test this question of dissent. the first them want to make sure everybody is very clear on is we've all heard rich man's war and the poor man's life and every is upset but we forget about the number of letters that come in kind of -- the letters that come into the governor's office calling on the governor to support conscription before it gets passed. this measure of equality. basically making sure everybody serves, everybody does their duty. we don't remember this. there was some early support for this as a way to make sure this was a shared suffering if you will, a shared burden. but you do start to see letters like this one where people are getting increasing frustrated about conscription. but if you notice the tone of this letter, i will reach out for those of you and back especially if you're getting drowsy come stay with me. this is a letter from july 31,

1862. a couple months after the passage of federal conscription. a person but is saying a call was made for volunteers and the people probably responded until all of information is gone but if you accept influence an old man is gone and there was in order to enroll the militia and the men that were set apart for that purpose without without knowing their duty and enrolled every invalid in the county and now there is an order for a draft out of that sort of man and it has cause great confusion and dissatisfaction from what few men was left. what i want you notice about this letter is they are not necessarily mad about conscription. the method of how the federal government in this case the state government is carrying out policy. when we think about dissent and things falling apart on homefront and giving absolute outraged, this free state of jones, not necessarily that is the issue.

this is another one. with two letter from opening of mary jones and wanted to use this one and share it with you because she is writing and as a soldier's wife, a soldiers would i should clarify, and she and her children are starving. she is from alabama. her father was a judge but they had moved north of jackson and then moved down to the mississippi river in south mississippi. she doesn't have any connections within the community. if you know anything about 19th-century america it's all about your connections and she's writing saying we are literally starving and no one will help me. again this is where 19th-century americans see the governor as someone who's going to be the protector, who will help them. these are the types of letters you will see this one in particular code in books all the time but is not necessarily dissent. this is a desperate woman who needs help. she is desperately pleading for

assistance, but you get enough of this, this could be problematic but this is what a mean when i want folks to think through the question of dissent and how problematic it can be. this one i want to share with you all is from may of 1864. this is another case of the woman by the name of sarah. by the way y'all i don't know if we have -- we do. see bush as a mark? she had some coffee today. a little shaky. that's what i meant when you can hear from people from all classes come people you will normally hear from because they don't keep diaries or they do they don't think they're important enough to be donated or published so these comp recollections are such rich resources to different people as they are experiencing them. her case is a little different. he knows what she's complaining about here, she says that to maintain claiming they were from

command of -- they said pierce claims the power to raise the company. they entered the field and you could see where she starts to take over almost like they're quoting her and forcibly therefrom took my horse, a small point philemon i had to plow and cultivate my piece of land to support my four children. again increasingly problematic, increasingly worrisome if this continues that this isn't necessarily kind of this dissent. she is not angry at the confederacy. she need some assistance, she needs some law and order. remember that because this is what i think is really going on. the big issue isn't dissent or breakdown of the will of the fight. the bigger issue is going to be by 64, 65 mississippi will be breaking down in terms of civil government, in terms of legal protection and the terms of criminal prosecutions come in terms of providing any of the

basic security that communities need. that is going to be the biggest issue for mississippi and its ability to continue to wage wars. if you notice hear anything highly like this if you go to the website are we talk about more and a minute, but if you go to the website for either getting tired and you need to like you something else right now, i know it was really good food, a lot of pasta, you can put down your phones, go to cwrgm.org but i will take more about later when we're done. if you notice what's going on here, now we're trying to see the impact of emancipation we talked about earlier that i was hinting out we start to be able to see this kind of question of enslaved people's are now leaving farms, leaving plantations and this woman from all the branch mississippi way up in the northern part of the state is saying enslaved people's are leaving and you've got to do something. this line were she says we feel pretty confident because we have lost in one yet she says we feel

pretty confident notwithstanding the emancipation proclamation. this agenda with third, 1863. you kind of know what's coming. this is going to get worse for her from her perspective, not better with this kind of breakdown. here's another example of one to show again as a slave people start to absolutely wanton plantations throughout the state. this this is a letter come ag my plantation is on the mississippi river and now within the enemies lines. they have stolen by of his enslavement. he said he still a second-place but he's listing out again come second to be able to form, not going to be able to produce but again to me the bigger kind of problem is going to be the breakout of the ability to provide him the security he needs for this kind of sustainable community. all right. same thing. this is going to be matches in 1863 when we're having this

absolute basic of becoming a flood as a slave people will be moving more and more towards federal lines as union forces come right in the middle of the vicksburg campaign start to have a very strong foothold as a moving within the state. now this is one my favorite documents that want to take a look at a time with so we understand exactly what i mean with the breakout of civil control. this is a letter up in the mississippi delta seven northwest part of the state right on the mississippi river. this is the first complaint if you can read it, if you're in the back it's not necessarily that surprising. versus asking is anything to be done with the parties were taken the oath or travel in the enemies of both without passes from confederate authority? here we have a trading with the enemy if you will. here's the part that does get surprising. the man writing says i captured

five negroes from island 75, three of them belong to mr. humphries, one to mrs. manley and says one of the negroes was armed. they were not engaged in tearing down the houses on general dix place and getting the lumber where milford had established a woodyard and is collecting all the negroes he can. he has with an armed band several times visited at night. the crew of the gunboat went out a few days ago and took is overseer prisoner. what they should be reminding you of his obit is this a reminiscent of a new night. if there's any genealogy to her in in a group please see me afterwards. we can't find the time on william yet but will be a fat is he wasn't overseer before the

war. he's kind of known for attacking potentially plantations where he had worked as an overseer or what is known in the area. but he seems be doing this thing that you see in jones county and the accounts of this in other counties all over mississippi as you start travis breakdown of control. you are starting to find these alliances forming not assume between poor whites and a slave people but in this case between the middle white compass overseer who is leading this band and creating chaos in the mississippi delta. when i was talking about this breakdown of discipline, this breakdown of security, breakdown of law and order, this will be another one of the issues i want you to think about. this quote comes from canton mississippi just north of

jackson, an important town during the civil war. it says i find to my surprise that public sentiment in this place encourages desertion from the state troops and civil officers are very inefficient in arresting party spirit what you're seeing is clear evidence of desertion and civilian population encouraging it to continue. here's another example as late as february 1865, the lack the lack of mounted mental rest these absentees is a serious drawback on those where the matter in charge. he's basically explaining the legislature passed an act saying round of these people come go after them and prosecute them. we need to do these things, have the security but if you can read this part down to the bottom what he's saying is the penalty for neglect for carrying out this duty is you report to the grand jury and upon conviction your punishment but he says there being no courts held in

two-thirds of the counties, this penalty amounts to nothing. and the law is not enforced because the figure 1865. court on a functioning in two-thirds of the county of the entire state of mississippi by this time. that's when talked about when i say you can have dissent, you can have unionism but is not going to be the absolute breakdown of will. i'm not entirely convinced white mississippians lost the will to continue to fight as much as a lost the ability to continue to fight. that's where i'm pushing this idea here, may be made too much of this wartime dissent. earlier i mentioned something that i want to come back and out and this is the role of u.s. color troops are going to be recruited mississippi or recruit outside to come and serve in mississippi. this is a document from shortly after the war, november 1865 and what you had here was an officer

from the freedmen's bureau who had been imprisoned. he was placed in jail at a local town by the locals who do not like what he's doing with the freedmen's bureau. he was forced have to get fit t in but what we don't always think about with occupation forces during reconstruction inn a state like mississippi were over 50% was black and enslaved before the war began is that those occupation forces a number of them are uscp. some of them former slaves from mississippi doing as he occupation duties including forcibly breaking out freedmen's bureau offices from these jails. this long-term role of where did unionism have a tremendous effect on the war effort in mississippi, where do things really start to break down from the confederate war effort in the city? i would argue more than white union is who fight for mississippi with the intent of homefront, hunger conservation, a lot of this desertion, it's

going to be the breakout of civil order and is going to be the use of usct recruit from the state of operating within it. the other thing want to make sure we can to think about when we talk about usct is a number of these men who will stay including by the way white compass to come white union officers in the said mississippi will stay on long after reconstruction. this is an naches mississippi from about 1890s, not positive. it's courtesy of our state archives. if you ever get to work in the state archives we're talking about this over dinner there's an archivist by the name of jeff. make sure you talk to jeff if you research anything about the civil war when you go to the mississippi department archival history. william rolled and photograph i showed. these photographs you can go in and i'm digging and taking intake but if you abort with an

archivist or great library and they will often know where everything is. i think you look at this and look at that. i give jeff some very well-deserved credit but this is what i mean when i say we are not always thinking about this long-term impact that uscts have had in the war effort in the city and also don't think we have fought enough about how those units were raised. so i want to shift gears a little bit and propose something i think the field needs to consider. one of the good things were doing in the field is we really moved beyond celebratory model of approaching studies of uscts which developed after years of this prejudice model, or just ignore the role played by uscts. it devolved into this very kind of heroic celebratory narrative, now with the work of posts like jonathan and others who are trying to explore the fact some

uscts had horrible desertion rates. they did not all perform well in battle. it's just another military unit. you need to study it and see what happens. these or other military leaders who are examined and try to understand. one thing i think we need to do if we're going to explore the question of uscts and the contributions to the defeat of the confederacy is how these units are recruited. when we study several organs, particularly volunteer units most of us use the old model, yet initial motivation, you have sustained motivation and jeff combat motivation. you look at the volunteers and what initially motivated them to join whichever forces, whatever side there fighting for come what initially got them inspired enough to cite up, sign the dotted line. we're talking about volunteers. dennis question of sustained motivation. what keeps them going after the

excitement is worn off come once again at and realize army life is miserable and you're basically told everything to do, when to do it and you're losing at a set of your freedoms. that kind of what keeps you going when the battles are not going well. combat motivation speaking of those battles, what keeps you going in those battles themselves. one of the things i don't think we're doing yet when we study uscts is realize the difference with how they are raised. a lot of uscts in mississippi in the western theater companies will be enslaved men who are going to be plucked off the plantations and farms as the federal arm is going through or they will become into federal lines on their own. if you think about confederate copies, think about the average civil war company, a lot of these guys are from the same town, saint community. they know each other. they are often family members within the same company regiment. uscts at least the ones i been studied in mississippi are not recruited that way.

they don't come into the unit with any kind of that unit cohesion. historians have talk about the fact they come in with some tremendous frustrations where they feel like they escaped slavery and now they are still somewhat feeling owned and controlled in the union army and that wasn't what they signed up for. but for me that is true but i think where to think about if we look at these high desertion rates we need to think about some of the factors causing it and they don't have those traditional recruitment methods use in other units. the other thing we need to think about our kind of what's the union motivation and recruiting uscts. the union army and union navy are trying to get enough guys into the ranks to win the war. this is it. i often wondered if you have the use of uscts almost like the recruitment of immigrant soldiers, a foreign-born soldiers that african-american

recruits are seen almost as outsiders to the union cause. there's guided no think you make about what their motivations might be because they are not viewed as part of the american cause. if are going to understand why these units are effective and why some of these units are not as effective, that's truly something else we have to consider. finally when it comes to sustaining motivations, a lot of these units signed on for three years, and the war ends before those three years are up. which means that this is not three years for win the war is over the visit for three solid years which means the war is over, you do not get to go home. there has been some scholarship argument this is a presidential policy by the union army by the u.s. forces body is government i would argue no, it is not. they signed up for three years. look at any army, look at u.s. forces at the end of world war ii. they were plenty red to come out and it didn't necessarily get to come home. this is what happens. we want to make sure when we study these units that you don't

kind of knee-jerk jump to the prejudice a lot of these men suffered as being an inherent military policy and think about maybe they're in for three years because they will have to stay in, because that's how they signed up, which means this is why we will run to the situations where a lot of these men are on this occupation duty. that they will have long after the war ends. this is also by the way why a lot of these men will wind up in mississippi long-term after the war even if they're not from there. what i hope to do tonight was to show you why governors papers matter. if you're at all interested in collections like these, the mississippi project was started -- anybody from kentucky interested in border war history, upper south history? our project was inspired by the civil war governors of kentucky.

that project has thousands of governors records available already. like i said we've got 3000 or if you go to cwrgm.org you confine our records before starting in 1859 and we have records out there going all the way right now to 1863 with more coming in. if you're interested in military history, narrow down your search for telegrams because we got all the telegrams that are starting to go up and including one of my goals is we can take these military telegrams and track the fog of war and the chaos you have during things like the vicksburg campaign. i would love to do this for them reading campaign. the very early spring of 1864 this is where you can really see grant and sherman developing a lot of strategies they would use in georgia and the carolinas later that year. if you're interested anything like this, some of it can have to do with some of these homefront issues like i've been focusing on tonight but a lot will have to do with traditional

military history. kind of understanding what troops are going through but also the back story to the books that you've been studying and reading certainly over many, many years. questions, , you guys? any questions about anything i brought up here? poke some holes if you think maloney, i think it was a lot bigger than you think. you want me to repeat the question lacks. [inaudible] >> we are going to bring a mic, okay. >> one think that intrigued me is a person like roland was a mississippi turkey left any joint joint dean army. what happened to him when he got home? >> this is the fun part, right? we have almost no letters that i've been able to find for william rowland. after the war i can find in mississippi for a while really

looks like you up to tennessee. he's in north mississippi is the right over the border. seems to come back and i lose track of them after the 1880s. my sense is that it becomes an increasingly uncomfortable place to be for union veterans. it just does. you can find this article as i was talking about has done such cool work on this. you can find these white post, you can find like post in mississippi up to write about 1890. .. >> and the situation that it is

with the union veteran in mississippi and how the alliances with black soldiers fought against mississippi and is going to help them. document and anything else and it think one of the coolest things of the national level is that the commander gr, and the overall commander absolutely if you remember this part of the books they said that they need to be integrated. that we need to stand together after the war by union major general govereur warren net could be the other reason as well wipe this was a breakdown. but i don't know that he was ever part of this right, but he certainly supported the union enough to take up arms and fight against the southerners in some cases fellow mississippians. the federal battalion in the white mississippians in the state, the usual given the option of assignments outside of the state so they don't have to fight against other people for mississippi predict. >> i get your point about the

dissent in trying to have that word in a nuanced way and what i was kind of thinking of when you were talking about ideas, is there room here forwards like satisfaction which, for people who are not really against the cause per se, but the satisfaction descriptor for what they are trying to explain in some of these letters. >> i absolutely think so, is a very clear action that you are taken, you are frustrated and you disagree with official policies and state or federal local level but that is an think you're right of people are feeling that i'm sorry, you will find assessment and dissatisfied people, it is a war so mississippi was not a fun place to be.

and that's why that i think that we should not make too much of the dissatisfaction. yet, have we made too much of that and too little of folks are actually taking up the bar and creating serious problems pretty neat idea of breakdown of civil control is not profound. but this is a pretty classic argument so i think that we need to get back to that and we made a little bit too much about the feds and i think that we made a little bit too much of descriptions the whole idea and i did not think that about imus ago but but as i read more and more documents, as folks are running into the governor clinton putting are asking for an exemption, not necessarily saying it is unfair thinking, they are saying that this local guy a dozen for the army as well.

so if you read it last book about the army and the voted for jenna, this idea the force actually represented in the rich were overrepresented in virginia i'm wondering now for going to something similar to that in mississippi, i don't know and i can go that far but i'm sensing that we pay a little bit much attention to this issue. >> is a middle ground before taking of the arms and a satisfaction in sabotaging those types of activities. >> i found all sorts of examples of just remember the discussion of the american revolution like a many people work patriots and how many people are loyalists and there's like this third that was in between the independent. you have a lot of people like that. or they're tired of the army the microphone for a few months.

then in turn into days and months and years. and not really convinced that anything will go well with the confederacy begin this doesn't mean sweep under they will take up arms of the union but the problem is you can't have successful for effort between people are doing that and the other thing, i was going to put it up you but you guys were starting and i was like yes, i give them three too many documents. they are rounding up deserters but they have deserted from the national level. because they want to serve the state troops because they will be closer to home so they are deserting, they are, they're actually still serving to the confederate cause pretty you have to have this stuff out to be careful that we don't just kind of jump on some of these words. >> you find examples of organized dissent rated. >> in terms of like political parties and buildings and things

like that. [inaudible]. >> the question is are we finding examples of organized dissent as far as how people coming together with the same cause and most dramatic example i can give you something like that is the case that i put up which is like a free state of jones in the mississippi delta and you can find it organized dissent is if you want to think about it in those terms, kind of a use the kansas term, bush workers and deserters organizing together to make sure nobody can come back in and for some it is service providing evidence about. other not necessarily taking arms up for the union. >> did you find the governor actually answered at correspondence in your records and if so, what was part of the answer. >> read, very brief. [laughter] this is all i know and i forgot

my heart and my soul in your eye thank you very much. how many of you have risen to a representative like nine times out of ten, running back and have signed photograph and i'm like what i know, i was very articulate. and the responses are usually from the secondary over the governor right and sometimes you will see them quickly come back on the letter but most of this can be an executive journal that will be digitized and that's one of the last things and we will digitize the quick responses in my favor, has come whenever more, inflamed during the work. hire himself out and paid a fortune to man who owed him. at the end of the world on the governors looking at the state budget is likely gotta do something to the state budget. so there's a tax passed on all wartime earnings.

and congratulations you have a portion of my nothing but there is a tax on this morning that he made who hard himself out. but at this point i think this is a their august or september of 1855, shortly after the war. they are attorneys and moves to north mississippi and went to the governor. and you can find these experiences from all different backgrounds another slave and as a businessman a race to the governor needs a look, i already paid my part-time earnings and he is a statement including in his letter from the manu him him saying, he paid a portion of his earnings to me and basically the text of the argument they make to the governor, you can either give me back the tax money that the sheriff has collected from e or we can try to figure out how much you owe me for my labor as an enslaved man in the governor running back ms. just says give him back his money because he's not ready to tackle the bigger

issue pretty. >> but for a lot of these will go into the ledgers. >> how much did they feel a freedom to dissent i would think a lot of them a for a lot of people in the state when i feel that because you have all those paintings in texas and other places were there any examples of the governor the regulator. like go get his property or something like that, did they really mean is hot enough to measure that if they didn't have that freedom to dissent. >> the best evidence i can give you is the letters and appointee pouring in so as people are feeling too scared to kinda

continue, they are still writing to the governor where i think my friend have a case here it is now openly on the dissenting and in the public and state right, the hanging was about kind of the local community kind of attacking the phone. they consider these homes, they were not - so i would say it is hard to measure. but you do see these deserters being protected as although it is not a scary thing. for me, i think that speaking out kind of against it confederacy and the goals if you want to think about it that way of the confederacy are actually going to increase later on into the 19th century and he starting at the suppression with a lost cause and popular memory in a kind of unified what it is about and that everybody was motivated. if you look at the monuments

downtown, people talk about this kind of unified route forgetting about the fact that it is kind of a joke, unified. and for me as a military person, like guys, were never unified always. i think that it is hard to know and is certainly not heard cases of kind the government sending people out to run people other things like that her neighbors attacking neighbors. >> i understand are using mississippi as a model and you previously touched about kentucky, how generic do you think your findings are throughout the south. >> i don't known as a i would not do that read you can't, ands is why the social say that using bill blair's burke in her book and that the white southerners really kind of understood the draft.

and i'm looking at some of the accounts that i've been reading in mississippi and unlike these are understanding but the moral of these letters, i don't know, i'm almost at the point now they didn't necessarily like the draft but they don't seem as upset about it is the document that i had read earlier than historians and scholars in a foldout the made to seem like with a wealth of the documents, it's almost as though people like it, they want exemptions but it's almost as though they understand this is kind of part of this happening. you just have to dig into the space in the upper south us out different from the deep south and you just can't do these generalities, not everybody has to go all the way through it reconstruction. but it was haywood because is an important part of understanding not only how is an important part of understanding how wars are lost i think we trained

military forces to the window wars and then they have to state occupying this is not what we do and actually this is what we need you to do. if you can understand that what is going on during reconstruction you can understand why some of the bases of the war did not last like some help. here's one in the front, wait for the microphone. >> you talked about the role of the u.s. occupation troops. somewhere i have read that the u.s. cts were used not only because they signed up for three years, and they had to say, but they liked it, they like to occupying the territory and showing their manliness. and a black man with buttons and a gun in a neighborhood it shows

that they emancipated themselves and are as good as the white troops and they said that they signed up to fight and wanted to go home and they were fighting to go home and the black troops often reused as occupation troops because i was something crowd for them. >> i think that you have to kind of digging into that a little bit because it's kind of like number one, any unitarian, is this if you like actually having an impact we feel like this is an absolute mess in my commander does not know what they're doing and will use all of the and can decipher them this their experience number one, number two, remember most, there's going to be this drive, i should say most, the u.s. cts, different motivations, sometimes it into the union army and survey simply to make money and get have of slavery so they

might for a while like the idea of being a powerful force occupying read but as an incredible miserable service what you see from a lot of the letters is that they didn't even necessarily want to sign up for this, it was their option to get away from slavery. that's when talking about when you really have to break down that there often and this is true, african-american unit is after studying, i really think that we have to kind of get away from the massachusetts model when you're looking at the units that are formed out of enslaved of men who are desperately trying to escape number two, then got pulled into service as the federal go through in some of these men were basically meeting the recording court is not all rushing for emancipation. there's often incredibly miserable experiences. since 20 be a mixed bag.

>> mi a crack to inns assuming that there were no grant fry in the south but there were in the north pretty. >> historians in the back i of one. >> all right ryan is frowning and john is shaking his head. [laughter] i can think of frustrations and complaining. and by no means are going to have new york city draft which is on the books of the worst in u.s. history for the smaller draft rights, have a ph student right now trying to help, there were smaller pockets all of the north. all over the place. and they're upset about this, good question. is there anything else. >> riots in north carolina for instance he got in the mountains

so so that you have organized rioting and like you would in new york city but people leaving and creating a greater havoc starts individually perhaps, maybe in small communities getting bigger and bigger and bigger. >> that could be. is there anything else, yep. >> yes and thank you, from the correspondence or should say how much, they get involved, they just want to plant their crops, they could not care less about the confederacy or the union they just want to be i guess what i'm trying to say, all you have to remember, could be stewards thing and shenandoah.

>> i would definitely imagine there were people there, and if you look at the maps that actually break down the states where they had kind of by county and you take josé, you cannot see it but if you see the maps and breakdown by county you can see these pockets. it's kind of like what brian was describing in these mountain communities, swirl the problem is you just want to be left alone and some not going to hear from you. this to me, always be aware, like i said, they are not happy and if they're happy they're not writing if they want to be left alone the probably not going to say leave me alone after i just contacted you so i'm not going to hear from them but, yes, i think definitely have those people. is there anything else pretty i showed you guys a lot of documents and text my students will tell you that i always say don't use that much text.

but i had to let you see the documents and please go to and use those documents if you have the teachers make sure they're aware, if you have teachers families in your communities, share the lesson plans let them know what is out there now they can use these. and we always use volunteer transcribers right now we have so many volunteer transcribers, we literally can barely keep up with them, they're going through the documents so fast if you're ever interested in the project with this by the way, i would be happy to talk to you, everything goes through innovative review and is verified and checked so even though we as volunteers, don't worry, something well done by the way, some of those volunteers are very very good and thank you everybody. i enjoyed it. [applause] >> the recent