Download or read book Appomattox Court House written by United States. National Park Service. Division of Publications and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2003-04-02 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Park Service Handbook 160. Tells the story of Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, which ended the Civil War, and the battles fought in the days before it. Also contains essays on events leading up to the Civil War and the implications of Appomattox for the post-Civil War generation, and a tourist's guide to the park. Item 649.

Download or read book Ends of War written by Caroline E. Janney and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-09-13 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Army of Northern Virginia's chaotic dispersal began even before Lee and Grant met at Appomattox Court House. As the Confederates had pushed west at a relentless pace for nearly a week, thousands of wounded and exhausted men fell out of the ranks. When word spread that Lee planned to surrender, most remaining troops stacked their arms and accepted paroles allowing them to return home, even as they lamented the loss of their country and cause. But others broke south and west, hoping to continue the fight. Fearing a guerrilla war, Grant extended the generous Appomattox terms to every rebel who would surrender himself. Provost marshals fanned out across Virginia and beyond, seeking nearly 18,000 of Lee's men who had yet to surrender. But the shock of Lincoln's assassination led Northern authorities to see threats of new rebellion in every rail depot and harbor where Confederates gathered for transport, even among those already paroled. While Federal troops struggled to keep order and sustain a fragile peace, their newly surrendered adversaries seethed with anger and confusion at the sight of Union troops occupying their towns and former slaves celebrating freedom. In this dramatic new history of the weeks and months after Appomattox, Caroline E. Janney reveals that Lee's surrender was less an ending than the start of an interregnum marked by military and political uncertainty, legal and logistical confusion, and continued outbursts of violence. Janney takes readers from the deliberations of government and military authorities to the ground-level experiences of common soldiers. Ultimately, what unfolds is the messy birth narrative of the Lost Cause, laying the groundwork for the defiant resilience of rebellion in the years that followed.

Download or read book Lee and Grant at Appomattox written by MacKinlay Kantor and published by Sterling Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a Pulitzer Prize winner comes the story of an unforgettable moment in American history: the historic meeting between General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant that ended the Civil War. MacKinlay Kantor captures all the emotions and the details of those few days: the aristocratic Lee’s feeling of resignation; Grant’s crippling headaches; and Lee’s request--which Grant generously allowed--to permit his soldiers to keep their horses so they could plant crops for food.

Download or read book Obstinate Heroism written by Steven J. Ramold and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite popular belief, the Civil War did not end when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, in April 1865. The Confederacy still had tens of thousands of soldiers under arms, in three main field armies and countless smaller commands scattered throughout the South. Although pressed by Union forces at varying degrees, all of the remaining Confederate armies were capable of continuing the war if they chose to do so. But they did not, even when their political leaders ordered them to continue the fight. Convinced that most civilians no longer wanted to continue the war, the senior Confederate military leadership, over the course of several weeks, surrendered their armies under different circumstances. Gen. Joseph Johnston surrendered his army in North Carolina only after contentious negotiations with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Gen. Richard Taylor ended the fighting in Alabama in the face of two massive Union incursions into the state rather than try to consolidate with other Confederate armies. Personal rivalry also played a part in his practical considerations to surrender. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith had the decision to surrender taken out of his hands—disastrous economic conditions in his Trans-Mississippi Department had eroded morale to such an extent that his soldiers demobilized themselves, leaving Kirby Smith a general without an army. The end of the Confederacy was a messy and complicated affair, a far cry from the tidy closure associated with the events at Appomattox.

Download or read book Appomattox written by Elizabeth R. Varon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-06 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Library of Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction Winner, Eugene Feit Award in Civil War Studies, New York Military Affairs Symposium Winner of the Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize of the Austin Civil War Round Table Finalist, Jefferson Davis Award of the Museum of the Confederacy Best Books of 2014, Civil War Monitor 6 Civil War Books to Read Now, Diane Rehm Show, NPR Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House evokes a highly gratifying image in the popular mind -- it was, many believe, a moment that transcended politics, a moment of healing, a moment of patriotism untainted by ideology. But as Elizabeth Varon reveals in this vividly narrated history, this rosy image conceals a seething debate over precisely what the surrender meant and what kind of nation would emerge from war. The combatants in that debate included the iconic Lee and Grant, but they also included a cast of characters previously overlooked, who brought their own understanding of the war's causes, consequences, and meaning. In Appomattox, Varon deftly captures the events swirling around that well remembered-but not well understood-moment when the Civil War ended. She expertly depicts the final battles in Virginia, when Grant's troops surrounded Lee's half-starved army, the meeting of the generals at the McLean House, and the shocked reaction as news of the surrender spread like an electric charge throughout the nation. But as Varon shows, the ink had hardly dried before both sides launched a bitter debate over the meaning of the war and the nation's future. For Grant, and for most in the North, the Union victory was one of right over wrong, a vindication of free society; for many African Americans, the surrender marked the dawn of freedom itself. Lee, in contrast, believed that the Union victory was one of might over right: the vast impersonal Northern war machine had worn down a valorous and unbowed South. Lee was committed to peace, but committed, too, to the restoration of the South's political power within the Union and the perpetuation of white supremacy. These two competing visions of the war's end paved the way not only for Southern resistance to reconstruction but also our ongoing debates on the Civil War, 150 years later. Did America's best days lie in the past or in the future? For Lee, it was the past, the era of the founding generation. For Grant, it was the future, represented by Northern moral and material progress. They held, in the end, two opposite views of the direction of the country-and of the meaning of the war that had changed that country forever.

Download or read book After Appomattox written by Gregory P. Downs and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Original and revelatory.” —David Blight, author of Frederick Douglass Avery O. Craven Award Finalist A Civil War Memory/Civil War Monitor Best Book of the Year In April 1865, Robert E. Lee wrote to Ulysses S. Grant asking for peace. Peace was beyond his authority to negotiate, Grant replied, but surrender terms he would discuss. The distinction proved prophetic. After Appomattox reveals that the Civil War did not end with Confederate capitulation in 1865. Instead, a second phase of the war began which lasted until 1871—not the project euphemistically called Reconstruction, but a state of genuine belligerence whose mission was to shape the peace. Using its war powers, the U.S. Army oversaw an ambitious occupation, stationing tens of thousands of troops in outposts across the defeated South. This groundbreaking history shows that the purpose of the occupation was to crush slavery in the face of fierce and violent resistance, but there were limits to its effectiveness: the occupying army never really managed to remake the South. “The United States Army has been far too neglected as a player—a force—in the history of Reconstruction... Downs wants his work to speak to the present, and indeed it should.” —David W. Blight, The Atlantic “Striking... Downs chronicles...a military occupation that was indispensable to the uprooting of slavery.” —Boston Globe “Downs makes the case that the final end to slavery, and the establishment of basic civil and voting rights for all Americans, was ‘born in the face of bayonets.’ ...A remarkable, necessary book.” —Slate

Download or read book Willie McLean and the Civil War Surrender written by Candice Ransom and published by Millbrook Press. This book was released on 2004-08-01 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleven-year-old Willie McLean knows that General Lee will defeat the Yankees and win the Civil War, he just knows it. When a battle moves to the fields near his home in Appomattox, Virginia, Willie’s thrilled—especially when General Lee, himself, comes to Willie’s house! But then General Grant comes, too. Overhearing the two men talk, Willie hears one word: Surrender. Is the war really over?

Download or read book The Story of the Surrender at Appomattox Court House written by Zachary Kent and published by Children's Press(CT). This book was released on 1987 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of the Civil War and the momentous meeting between Lee and Grant.

Download or read book The Surrender Proceedings April 9 1865 Appomattox Court House written by Frank P. Cauble and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Raising the White Flag written by David Silkenat and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-02-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Civil War began with a laying down of arms by Union troops at Fort Sumter, and it ended with a series of surrenders, most famously at Appomattox Courthouse. But in the intervening four years, both Union and Confederate forces surrendered en masse on scores of other occasions. Indeed, roughly one out of every four soldiers surrendered at some point during the conflict. In no other American war did surrender happen so frequently. David Silkenat here provides the first comprehensive study of Civil War surrender, focusing on the conflicting social, political, and cultural meanings of the action. Looking at the conflict from the perspective of men who surrendered, Silkenat creates new avenues to understand prisoners of war, fighting by Confederate guerillas, the role of southern Unionists, and the experiences of African American soldiers. The experience of surrender also sheds valuable light on the culture of honor, the experience of combat, and the laws of war.

Download or read book This Astounding Close written by Mark L. Bradley and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2006-12-29 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, the Civil War continued to be fought, and surrenders negotiated, on different fronts. The most notable of these occurred at Bennett Place, near Durham, North Carolina, when Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Union General William T. Sherman. In this first full-length examination of the end of the war in North Carolina, Mark Bradley traces the campaign leading up to Bennett Place. Alternating between Union and Confederate points of view and drawing on his readings of primary sources, including numerous eyewitness accounts and the final muster rolls of the Army of Tennessee, Bradley depicts the action as it was experienced by the troops and the civilians in their path. He offers new information about the morale of the Army of Tennessee during its final confrontation with Sherman's much larger Union army. And he advances a fresh interpretation of Sherman's and Johnston's roles in the final negotiations for the surrender.

Download or read book Never Surrender written by W. Scott Poole and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Near Appomattox, during a cease-fire in the final hours of the Civil War, Confederate general Martin R. Gary harangued his troops to stand fast and not lay down their arms. Stinging the soldiers' home-state pride, Gary reminded them that "South Carolinians never surrender." By focusing on a reactionary hotbed within a notably conservative state--South Carolina's hilly western "upcountry"--W. Scott Poole chronicles the rise of a post-Civil War southern culture of defiance whose vestiges are still among us. The society of the rustic antebellum upcountry, Poole writes, clung to a set of values that emphasized white supremacy, economic independence, masculine honor, evangelical religion, and a rejection of modernity. In response to the Civil War and its aftermath, this amorphous tradition cohered into the Lost Cause myth, by which southerners claimed moral victory despite military defeat. It was a force that would undermine Reconstruction and, as Poole shows in chapters on religion, gender, and politics, weave its way into nearly every dimension of white southern life. The Lost Cause's shadow still looms over the South, Poole argues, in contemporary controversies such as those over the display of the Confederate flag. Never Surrender brings new clarity to the intellectual history of southern conservatism and the South's collective memory of the Civil War.

Download or read book A Place Called Appomattox written by William Marvel and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-02-11 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Appomattox Court House is one of the most symbolically charged places in America, it was an ordinary tobacco-growing village both before and after an accident of fate brought the armies of Lee and Grant together there. It is that Appomattox--the typical small Confederate community--that William Marvel portrays in this deeply researched, compelling study. He tells the story of the Civil War from the perspective of those who inhabited one of the conflict's most famous sites. The village sprang into existence just as Texas became a state and reached its peak not long before Lee and Grant met there. The postwar decline of the village mirrored that of the rural South as a whole, and Appomattox served as the focal point for both Lost Cause myth-making and reconciliation reveries. Marvel draws on original documents, diaries, and letters composed as the war unfolded to produce a clear and credible portrait of everyday life in this town, as well as examining the galvanizing events of April 1865. He also scrutinizes Appomattox the national symbol, exposing and explaining some of the cherished myths surrounding the surrender there.

Download or read book Lee s Last Retreat written by William Marvel and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2006-02-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few events in Civil War history have generated such deliberate mythmaking as the retreat that ended at Appomattox. As the popular imagination would have it, Robert E. Lee's tattered, starving, but devoted troops found themselves hopelessly surrounded thro

Download or read book Lee s Aide de Camp written by Charles Marshall and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Marshall was appointed aide-de-camp to Robert E. Lee on 21 March 1862, and from then until the surrender, he stood at the general?s side. A military secretary, he compiled a remarkable, intimate account of the day-to-day wartime experience of the Confederacy?s most celebrated--and enigmatic--military figure. Marshall?s papers are of three sorts: those intended for a projected life of Lee, those intended for an account of the campaign at Gettysburg, and notes on events of the war. Collected here, these papers provide a unique firsthand look at Lee?s generalship?from the most complete account ever given of the fateful orders issued to Jeb Stuart at Gettysburg, to the only testimony from a Southern witness of the scene in McLean?s house at Appomattox. Marshall?s commentary addresses some of the war?s more intriguing questions: Whose idea was it to fight the second Manassas? What caused Jackson?s delays in the Battles of the Seven Days? Who devised the flank march around Hooker at Chancellorsville? This book?s insights into Robert E. Lee and his military strategy and its close-up report on the Confederacy?s war qualify it as an indispensable part of America?s historical record.

Download or read book Mr Lincoln s Army written by Bruce Catton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid account of the early battles, first in the Pulitzer Prize-winning trilogy: “One of America’s foremost Civil War authorities” (Kirkus Reviews). The first book in Bruce Catton’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Mr. Lincoln’s Army is a riveting history of the early years of the Civil War, when a fledgling Union Army took its stumbling first steps under the command of the controversial general George McClellan. Following the secession of the Southern states, a beleaguered President Abraham Lincoln entrusted the dashing, charismatic McClellan with the creation of the Union’s Army of the Potomac and the responsibility of leading it to a swift and decisive victory against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Although a brilliant tactician who was beloved by his troops and embraced by the hero-hungry North, McClellan’s ego and ambition ultimately put him at loggerheads with his commander in chief—a man McClellan considered unworthy of the presidency. McClellan’s weaknesses were exposed during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history, which ended in a stalemate even though the Confederate troops were greatly outnumbered. After Antietam, Lincoln ordered McClellan’s removal from command, and the Union entered the war’s next chapter having suffered thousands of casualties and with great uncertainty ahead. America’s premier chronicler of the nation’s brutal internecine conflict, Bruce Catton is renowned for his unparalleled ability to bring a detailed and vivid immediacy to Civil War battlefields and military strategy sessions. With tremendous depth and insight, he presents legendary commanders and common soldiers in all their complex and heartbreaking humanity.

Download or read book Hymns of the Republic written by S. C. Gwynne and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell comes “a masterwork of history” (Lawrence Wright, author of God Save Texas), the spellbinding, epic account of the last year of the Civil War. The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of the most compelling narratives and one of history’s great turning points. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist S.C. Gwynne breathes new life into the epic battle between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln. “A must-read for Civil War enthusiasts” (Publishers Weekly), Hymns of the Republic offers many surprising angles and insights. Robert E. Lee, known as a great general and Southern hero, is presented here as a man dealing with frustration, failure, and loss. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman, Gwynne argues, was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers—most of them former slaves. Popular history at its best, Hymns of the Republic reveals the creation that arose from destruction in this “engrossing…riveting” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) read.