Hal Holbrook - If we want to understand the actions of a man in the early 1860's, put your

If we want to understand the actions of a man in the early 1860's, put yourself back there in his shoes. As a young man he began piloting steamboats on the Mississippi, a job he loved and wanted to do the rest of his life, he said. The Civil War ended traffic on the River and his job. He wrote about it in A History of A Campaign That Failed. He said: "I joined the Confederacy, served for two weeks, deserted, and the Confederacy fell." His attachment to the Southern ideal of slavery does not appear very sturdy.

- Hal Holbrook

source: "Hal Holbrook of MARK TWAIN TONIGHT, Coming to Riverside's Fox Performing Arts Center". Interview with Audrey Liebross, www.broadwayworld.com. January 12, 2015.