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Grant, Lee, Appomattox.

On this day in 1865, having been hounded to ground at last, General Robert E. Lee, CSA  surrendered the remains of his Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union’s Army, wielding the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James.  The surrender of Lee’s Army of…

On this day in 1865, having been hounded to ground at last, General Robert E. Lee, CSA  surrendered the remains of his Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union’s Army, wielding the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James. 

The surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia soon led to the surrender of the remaining Confederate armies and strongpoints. It is generally accepted as the end of the Civil War, though fighting actually went on elsewhere for a while.

Civil wars are notorious for their ferocity, and ours was no exception, it being our bloodiest war ever.  What is amazing is that after such a campaign, that Grant instinctively knew to offer Lee generous terms. Rather than extracting retribution, Grant demanded only that the rebels surrender their arms, and return to their homes, with the proviso they promise never again to wage war against the United States.

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  1. Gunny G

    Reblogged this on IF THE TRUTH BE KNOWN…BLOGGING BAD w/Gunny.G….

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  2. ultimaratioregis

    There is the story of Grant’s months-long crushing headache immediately disappearing minutes after shaking hands with his old commander after the surrender was signed. Two giants, to be sure. Both of which understood the power they had to both fight and, on this day, end the war.

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  3. Shaun Evertson

    Have to wonder whether such character will exist at the close of the next civil war.

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  4. Byron Audler

    Shaun, pray that never, ever happens again.

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  5. LT Rusty

    Absolutely, but I don’t think that prayer will be answered.

    20 years. 30 at the outside.

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  6. Casey Tompkins

    Things would have worked out a lot better if Congress and the Radical Republicans had just STFU, while allowing Grant & Lee to settle terms.

    No, the Radicals didn’t want just victory, but humiliation for the South. Fools.

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  7. Bill

    But the southern Democrats were always going to impose a Jim Crow regime. At least under Radical Reconstruction, there was an attempt to avoid that.

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  8. Quartermaster

    Bill, it was radical reconstruction that inspired Jim Crow. The corrupt GOP governments armed blacks, and in some places set them on the whites. It caused the rise of resistance movements, such as Wade Hampton’s Red Shirts and the conversion of the Klan from frat boy hijinks to a resistance organization that used terror to reign in the worst of the abuses. Radical reconstruction came close to relighting the war, and it would not have been a pretty sight even compared to what had gone before.

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  9. Quartermaster

    This country, thankfully, has never known civil war. The war between the states is more accurately known as the war of northern aggression. Lincoln started it on a lie, and it ended up taking his life as well. The south simply fought for independence, and to be left alone, just as the 13 colonies had against the British.

    If civil war does come, it will be nothing like the relatively gentile fight of 18612-1865. It will more like the conflicts we have seen in the last 50 years, and there will be no neutrals, and everywhere the battlefield. The US will be no more.

    I’m hoping for a more gentle decomposition if time allows, but given the events of Psalms 83, Ezekial chapters 38 & 39 and Revelation are on the distant horizon, with us moving towards it rapidly, I doubt that will happen. I give the US 5-10 years at the outside, and closer to 5.

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  10. Paul L. Quandt

    I know that I will upset some of y’all with this question, but I’m going to ask anyway.

    If it was the “war of Northern aggression”, why did the South shoot first?

    Paul

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