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$Title{Appomattox Court House
Chapter 1: Welcome To Appomattox}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Luvaas, Jay}
$Affiliation{Allegheny College}
$Subject{appomattox
army
war
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surrender
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$Date{1980}
$Log{See Surrender*0098001.scf
}
Title:       Appomattox Court House
Author:      Luvaas, Jay
Affiliation: Allegheny College
Date:        1980

Chapter 1: Welcome To Appomattox

Appomattox: A New Look

     I'll not forget my first pilgrimage to Appomattox.  Although it was the
anniversary date of the surrender there were no visible signs of spring such
as there had been on April 9, 1865.  No buds or blossoms tinged the landscape,
the grass had not yet turned spring green, and instead of the mild sun
described in eyewitness accounts, the weather was cold, overcast, and gusty.
Most of the time it was spitting snow.

     Perhaps this is why our spirits were gloomy.  We were a group of about
25, some of whom had tramped battlefields together for as many years.  We came
from all walks of life - corporation executives, garage mechanics, doctors,
salesmen, and a few teachers, and we came from such diverse places as
Sarasota, Ottawa, Durham, and northwest Pennsylvania.  All the way from
Petersburg, as we retraced the final marches and located the breastworks
thrown up by the two armies, the group had been strangely silent.  Even the
more boisterous spirits among us seemed subdued.  There was none of the usual
chatter or good natured banter; the doctor who on similar marches would
habitually sharpen his batting eye by knocking cans with his 'Tennessee
Walking Stick' seemed absorbed in his own thoughts.  Most of the men spoke in
whispers the entire day.  I think we were all relieved when we headed back to
Petersburg.

     No doubt the dull weather contributed to our mood, but obviously what
bothered us most was the dawning realization that for the tired, bedraggled,
hungry, and proud men of Lee's army, the war was over.  We should have
rejoiced but most of us had marched too long in those long-dead ranks not to
share the agony and frustration of defeat.  For over the years, as we refought
one Civil War battle after another on location and with appropriate maps and
volumes of the Official Records in hand we had come to know what those
officers and men had to endure and how much stamina, ingenuity, and courage it
took for them to fight for so long - and so successfully.  As we had tried to
sort out the thinking and behavior of the men on both sides, it was the
Confederate strategy and troop handling that had impressed us the most, and
this was true even of those who lived north of the Mason and Dixon line,
though I would never admit so much to my good North Carolina friends.

     We all felt pretty much that Appomattox represented an end rather than a
beginning.  There would be no tomorrows for Lee's soldiers.  It was over.  The
pain, suffering, and horrible cost were all in vain; the brilliant victories
counted for nothing.

[See Surrender: Expanded center portion of Louis Guillaume's painting of the
surrender ceremony.]

     I was curious therefore to see whether these impressions would persist
when I next had an excuse to visit Appomattox.  On this occasion I went alone,
with maps, books, and a little more time to poke around.  Once again I
followed in the footsteps of the armies as they marched and fought their way
to Appomattox, but this time, deliberately, I focused my attention on the
Union efforts.  Viewed in this light, the Appomattox campaign emerges not so
much as a retreat to a surrender site as an energetic and well-directed
pursuit of a formidable army.  "Push around the enemy, if you can, and get on
to his right rear," Grant had instructed Sheridan at the outset of the
campaign.  "I mean to end the business here."  The response from his fiery
cavalry commander was characteristic: "I tell you, I'm ready to strike out
tomorrow and go to smashing things."  Grant meanwhile had discussed with
President Lincoln, who was then visiting headquarters at City Point, the terms
that should be given to Lee on surrender, and he had briefed his staff on his
intentions and what he expected of each corps in different circumstances.
There was a new, aggressive spirit in the Army of the Potomac reminiscent of
the single eye and driving energy of Lee and Jackson in earlier days.

     I began my journey to Appomattox at Petersburg.  Driving along the Union
siege lines I proceeded to Hatcher's Run and Five Forks.  "Our way led through
bogs, tangled woods and thickets of pine, interspersed with open spaces here
and there," a Union general had recorded in his after-action report, and the
country today is still grubby and lacking in feature.  Remembering that the
maps available in 1865 gave no topography except for the main streams and
roads and did not always distinguish forest, clearings, or swamps, I wondered
how the blue columns had found their way; it is difficult even with modern
road maps.

     Eventually I reached Five Forks, a vital strategic point that blocked
Sheridan's further advance to the Southside Railroad a short distance beyond.
If the railroad line were captured or destroyed Lee would have to evacuate and
either move west, in the direction of Lynchburg, or south into North Carolina
to join the remnants of Joseph E. Johnston's command.

     There is not much to be seen at Five Forks beyond the Confederate
breastworks, complete with unusual traverses of the type found also near the
Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania.  Yet, here on April 1, 1865, Sheridan's cavalry
aided by the Union Fifth Corps overwhelmed a Confederate force one-third as
large, thus opening the way to the Southside and also exposing the extreme
right of the Confederate works at Hatcher's Run.  This was followed the next
day by what General Meade considered to be "the decisive moment of the
campaign," when the Sixth Corps smashed through the Confederate lines opposite
Fort Fisher, south and a little west of Petersburg.  The Sixth Corps
penetrated all the way to the Appomattox River and then swung left against
Confederate forces in the vicinity of Hatcher's Run.  The Twenty-Fourth Corps
passed through the breach and then moved to the right in the direction of
Petersburg, capturing several Confederate lines and finally crowning the day
with a successful assault on Fort Gregg.

     That night Lee pulled his remaining troops out of the Petersburg lines to
join the rest of his army as it trudged by prearranged routes to Amelia Court
House, where he hoped to concentrate and find the supplies desperately needed
by his dwindling command.

     Strictly speaking Grant did not pursue Lee: to follow the retreating
Confederates would only drive them into the mountains, where they could
prolong the war for months, or enable them to unite with Johnston's army in
North Carolina where they might fall upon Sherman.  But in either case he was
determined to intercept the Confederates.  As one of his chief subordinate
generals put it, "the whole army was inspired with but one determination - to
hunt the rebels down and whip them into surrender."

     Driving along these country roads, where the terrain is still heavily
wooded and often swampy, I marveled at the way in which these columns remained
in contact with each other, spread as they were over a great distance.  Did
the troops have a clear idea what was happening?  Much was demanded of them,
for the roads were bad and the supply trains wallowed way behind.  For the
first time I realized that the Union soldiers also were hungry and short of
rations, and while a more buoyant mood perhaps took some of the weight out of
their haversacks, they too were pushed to the limits of endurance.

     On the evening of April 4, Sheridan reached the Danville railroad at
Jetersville, where he learned that Lee's army was at Amelia Court House just
east of there.  His men quickly constructed a formidable line of breastworks,
part of which remain, still impressive.

     While Sheridan and Meade awaited battle, Lee discovered that he had no
time to wait for his rations.  The supplies which supposedly had been ordered
to be sent to Amelia Court House from Danville had not arrived and the route
was now blocked by three Union corps.  Amelia today still possesses much of
the charm that it held for a Union officer who visited it a few months after
the war:

     . . . of the sleepy old Virginia type, its houses unpretentious
     and its streets unpaved, varying kinds of paling and board fences
     enclose the door yards, some of which are enlivened by clumps of
     flowers and bending rose bushes in bloom, and now and then a sweetly
     breathing honeysuckle clambers affectionately over a porch window.

But Lee's soldiers probably were not charmed by this old shire town.

     It was a drizzly, dismal day as the "wet, tired and famishing troops"
arrived only to learn that the promised rations were not at hand.  The next
morning an unusually large number of troops did not respond at roll call and a
Confederate cavalryman recorded: "I beheld the first signs of dissolution of
that grand army which had endured every hardship of march and camp with
unshaken fortitude, when looking over the hills I saw swarms of stragglers
moving in every direction." "Our army is ruined, I fear," wrote another, and
when his letter was captured and delivered to Sheridan, the Union commander
renewed his exertions.

     After a demonstration in the direction of Jetersville Lee slipped away to
the west, with Sheridan's cavalry moving cross-country on a parallel line of
march.  The terrain here is more broken and begins to lift and roll as one
approaches the mountains "a great improvement," Colonel Lyman reported from
Meade's headquarters, "full of hills, not high but steep, with a nice brook in
every hollow."

     At one of these brooks called Sayler's Creek, the Union advance caught up
with the Confederate rear.  The battlefield is much as it was then, a
picturesque site where one can easily reconstruct mentally what happened.  The
Hillsman house, where the Union artillery beat back a determined but
ill-advised counterattack by the Confederates, still stands, and from the
modest parking area on the Confederate side of the creek it is easy to see how
the slight rise in the false crest of the hill could give shelter from the
shells of the Union guns.

     For the Confederates the day was a disaster.  Seven to eight thousand
soldiers and eight generals had been captured, the staff organization had
broken down, and serious morale problems had arisen 'in the ranks.  From a
distant vantage point Lee, seeing the remnants of two corps fleeing across the
fields, was heard to exclaim:  "My God, has the army been dissolved?"  On the
other side of the hill Sheridan wrote Grant: "If the thing is pressed, I think
that Lee will surrender."  The message was forwarded to Lincoln, who was still
at City Point waiting impatiently for news, and back came the laconic reply:
"Let the thing be pressed."

     Lee ordered the remaining half of his army to cross the Appomattox.
Longstreet's men crossed at Farmville where they were issued their first
rations in five days.  But even as they entered Farmville the Army of the
James was upon their flank and rear, while to the east the Second Corps poured
across the spectacular High Bridge spanning the Appomattox.  This line of
advance threatened Lee's only route of retreat.  With no time to waste, the
trains of supplies were sent westward by rail, and the weary army resumed its
march along the Lynchburg road, hoping to catch up with its supplies at
Appomattox station.  But again Sheridan's cavalry leapfrogged ahead to block
the way.  Finally, even the most optimistic among the Confederates knew that
there was "nothing left . . . to do but to go and see General Grant."  For
Lee it was like dying a thousand deaths.

     Today Appomattox Court House is an unpretentious village on a windswept
ridge, a quiet spot that maintains its importance with patient dignity. Unlike
such well-worn tourist paths as Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, or Gettysburg,
where history is a mantle proudly worn, Appomattox seems to make a determined
effort to keep its importance in perspective.  Thirteen of the buildings that
existed in April 1865 remain in the village today, while nine other structures
including the McLean house, where the surrender actually took place, have been
reconstructed on the original sites.  But for the absence of normal village
sounds - men at work, children playing, an occasional wagon lumbering by, and
the noise from chickens and livestock - it seems almost like a step back into
the 19th-century.  As one of my friends said, "there was a kind of isolated
grandeur about the site, an extraordinary sort of remoteness, an existence
outside time.  This sense of being in an elevated, remote and even hidden
place seemed to be utterly fitting:  a right place to end the most American
of wars, in a setting quintessentially American."  This too sets it apart from
other Civil War sites and even from places like Yorktown and Williamsburg.

     Now I realize that it is the quiet that forces one to ponder the meaning
of events here.  I could almost see those historic figures in the McLean house
as they agreed on the terms of surrender, and it occurred to me that had the
generals been able to determine the course of reconstruction, the nation
probably would have been better off.  Lee resisted any temptation to disperse
his army and resort to guerrilla warfare, which would have prolonged the agony
of the war for months.  His dignified acceptance of the surrender terms and
his conduct after the war established the model for thousands of admirers to
emulate.  And Grant, who felt no glee "at the downfall of a foe who had fought
so long and valiantly," was as generous in victory as he had been persistent
throughout the 1864-65 campaigns.  Had the political leaders in Washington
after Lincoln's assassination, five days later, followed the restraint of the
military leaders, the wounds caused by the war would have healed more quickly.
It was another general, the notorious Sherman, who had insisted that "the
legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace."  Political leaders,
particularly in a democracy where they must respond to an aroused public
opinion, are often inclined to be vindictive.

     Among popular writers of history it has become fashionable to view the
Civil War as a necessary "ordeal by fire," a national catharsis out of which
the United States emerged united, purified, and ready for its gigantic
industrial growth and role as a world leader.  This preposterous notion has
always irritated me and never more so than when I stood that day at Appomattox
pondering the future lives of the men who had been spared to resume the
pursuits of peace.  For such an interpretation must necessarily assume that
the war was both inevitable and good, and that the peace that followed would
be honorable.  But the postwar years were among the most corrupt in American
political history, the issues that brought on the war - slavery and states'
rights - continued to plague the nation in one form or another for a century,
and strong feelings in some sections have lasted nearly as long.

     No, the meaning of events at Appomattox gains nothing from a
rationalization of a war responsible for the deaths of more than half a
million Americans - a greater number than we lost in both World Wars.
Significantly, most of the visitors are not even Civil War enthusiasts.  They
come to Appomattox because they intuitively realize that this was one of the
great watersheds in American history, a place like Valley Forge and Yorktown
that one simply must see because it is a part of the American heritage.  It
is a place to re-examine our past - and to learn something about ourselves as
well.