America's Birth at Appomattox

Article 36

America’s Birth At Appomattox

Anne Wortham

It would of course be easy to make too much of the gen- LINCOLN’S ATTITUDE eral air of reconciliation.… And yet by any standard this was an almost unbelievable way to end a civil war, We are not enemies, but friends.… Though passion may which by all tradition is the worst kind of war there is.1 have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The —Bruce Catton mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart, and hearth- stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of On April 9, 1865, eighty-nine years after the Continental the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by Congress declared the independence of “thirteen united the better angels of our nature. —Abraham Lincoln States of America,” the United States of America was born Reconciliation was an explicit policy goal of Abraham Lin- at the residence of farmer Wilmer McLean in the hamlet of coln’s, which he made clear to Generals Grant and Sherman and Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Civil War historian Adm. David Dixon Porter in a conference aboard the River James Robertson has said, “Lee signed not so much terms of Queen at City Point, Virginia, after his visit to the front on March surrender as he did the birth certificate of a nation—the Unit- 27, 1865. Lincoln knew that unless “the better angels of our na- ed States—and the country was born in that moment.”2 An ture” could be asserted by unambiguous action at war’s end, there American nationality in the sense of a general feeling of be- was no hope for the new birth of freedom and the national com- ing American above all else did not yet exist when Grant and munity he believed was possible. The problem for Lincoln was Lee put their names to the surrender document. But there how to simultaneously end the war and win the peace. As Bruce were at work nineteenth-century values, ideas, and attitudes Catton puts it, he argued that the Union’s aim should be not so that transcended sectional loyalties, that remained intact much to subdue the Confederacy as to checkmate those forces of throughout the war, and made possible the birth of the United malice and rancor that could jeopardize peace. For if the North States as a nation. won the war and lost the peace, there would be no way to realize I will look at the function of friendship, battlefield com- his hope that “the whole country, North and South together, radeship and courtesy, and shared nationality in that pro- [would] ultimately find in reunion and freedom the values that cess; and argue that these qualities of association—as well would justify four terrible years of war.”3 as the high value the combatants placed on courage, duty, honor, and discipline—enabled the Federals and Confeder- In the only existing documentation of the meeting, Admiral ates to achieve what Robert Penn Warren called “reconcil- Porter wrote: iation by human recognition.” I intend to show how My opinion is that Mr. Lincoln came down to City Point reconciliation was played out in numerous meetings be- with the most liberal views toward the rebels. He felt con- tween Union and Confederate officers and soldiers at Ap- fident that we would be successful, and was willing that the pomattox between April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered, enemy should capitulate on the most favorable terms.… and April 12, when the Confederates stacked their arms, He wanted peace on almost any terms.… His heart was folded their flags, and were paroled. tenderness throughout, and, as long as the rebels laid down their arms, he did not care how it was done.4

1 Article 36. America’s Birth At Appomattox

Lincoln knew that the peace and reconciliation he envisioned There were mutual introductions and shaking of hands, would not stand a chance without generous surrender terms. He and soon was passed about some whiskey (General expected Grant, “the remorseless killer,” and Sherman, “de- [Romeyn] Ayres furnished the whiskey and he alleges it struction’s own self,” to “fight without mercy as long as there was a first class article) and mutual healths were drank must be fighting, but when the fighting stopped they [must] try and altogether it was a strange grouping. The rebel of- to turn old enemies into friends.” ficers were all elegantly dressed in full uniform. Gradu- ally the area of the conference widened. From the steps Lincoln knew his fellow citizens, and he was the conferring party got into the street, and before it closed some were seated on the steps, and others, for confident that while they were politically lack of more comfortable accommodations, chatted co- disunited, the raw material of reconciliation sily, seated on a contiguous fence.6 resided in their hearts. Gen. Joshua Chamberlain overheard two West Point classmates who had been combatants for four years renewing an old acquaintance. “Well Billy, old boy, how goes it?” the Union of- But could reconciliation be coaxed out of defeat? There were ficer said. “Bad, bad, Charlie, bad I can tell you; but have you reasons to think it possible. Lincoln knew his fellow citizens, and got any whiskey?”7 he was confident that while they were politically disunited, the raw material of reconciliation resided in their hearts. Indeed, friendli- ness and respect were present within the armies, and there was now When we consider the pain, suffering, less bitterness between them than when the war began. Yet another and death these men had inflicted upon resource was the extraordinary resilience of the friendships between the former West Pointers leading those armies. Finally, one another and their comrades, how are whether he knew it or not, but must have sensed, Lincoln had a we to explain their apparent lack of most reliable resource in the antisecessionist gray commander him- resentment and bitterness? self, Robert E. Lee—but not until he was defeated.

When we consider the pain, suffering, and death these men WEST POINT 1: A CHEERFUL had inflicted upon one another and their comrades, how are we to explain their apparent lack of resentment and bitterness? COLLOQUY How could one so easily drink of the cup of fraternity with If one would have a friend, one must be willing to wage someone who has been shooting at him and his comrades—and war for him: and in order to wage war, one must be ca- sometimes hitting the mark—for four years? Can vanquished pable of being an enemy.… In one’s friend, one shall and victor really be friends? find one’s best enemy. —Frederich Nietzsche Well, yes—if the fellow who had been shooting at you was a friend before he was your enemy, and if he was bound to you by that precious ethos called the “spirit of West Point.” Vindictive- “The soldiers did not need to be told that it would be well to ness was not the order of the day for these men. They just make peace mean comradeship. All they needed was to see some- wanted it over. Indeed, two months before, on February 25, body try it,” writes Catton. 5 Well, on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, Union Gen. Edward Ord met under a flag of truce with his there were plenty of occasions to see the vanquished and the victo- former classmate, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet, and dis- rious extend the hand of friendship. On the morning of that dramat- cussed the possibility of Lee and Grant declaring peace on the ic day, white flags of truce were held aloft as messengers rode field. Now, as the officers waited for Grant and Lee, John between the lines, and a cease-fire was in place until the anticipated Gibbon, a North Carolinian whose three brothers fought for the surrender meeting between Grant and Lee. By late morning the Confederacy, proposed that if Grant and Lee couldn’t come to contending armies stood on either side of the town, with their pick- terms and stop the fighting, they should order their soldiers to et lines out, their guns silent, nervously contemplating the meaning fire only blank cartridges to prevent further bloodshed. By of surrender and ever alert for the resumption of hostile fire. But noon, when Grant still had not appeared, the West Pointers rode gathered on the steps of the Appomattox Courthouse, awaiting the back to their respective lines, all hoping, as Gibbon said, “that arrival of the two commanding generals, was a curious group of there would be no further necessity for bloodshed.” Union and Confederate generals, most of them West Point graduates, and many of them from the same graduating classes. As historian Frank Cauble points out, because of the more CONDITIONAL SURRENDER significant surrender meeting that everyone was anticipating, this earlier conference of officers has been largely overlooked Another year would go by before President Andrew Johnson, and seldom mentioned in Civil War histories. However, the on April 2, 1866, proclaimed “that the insurrection… is at an sight of these former combatants was “a singular spectacle,” end and is henceforth to be so regarded.” But Grant and Lee’s wrote New York reporter L.A. Hendrick. task of reconciliation could not wait for the U.S. government’s

2 ANNUAL EDITIONS official certification of the end of the war. They knew it had to Lee asked that those of the enlisted men who owned their begin with the surrender terms themselves. Grant finally arrived horses be permitted to keep them. At first Grant rejected this re- from the field between 1:30 and 2:00 and entered the McLean quest, but then he changed his mind. Since this was the last house where Lee was waiting. By 3:00 the surrender documents battle of the war, the men needed their horses to put in their were signed, the two commanders had shaken hands, and Lee spring crops, and since the United States did not want the had mounted Traveller and returned to his lines. At 4:30 Grant horses, he said he would instruct the parole officers to “let every telegraphed Washington, informing the secretary of war that man of the Confederate army who claimed to own a horse or Lee had surrendered “on terms proposed by myself.” mule to take the animal to his home.” It was ironic that for four years Grant had tried to kill these men, and now he didn’t want to stand in the way of their planting their crops so they could live. But Grant now saw himself as an instrument for a lasting peace. He extended his generosity further by ordering his army to share its rations with the hungry rebels. The surrender terms were entirely consistent with the policy of reconciliation that Lincoln had articulated back in March. According to Admiral Porter, when Lincoln learned of the surrender terms, he was “delighted” and exclaimed “a dozen times, ‘Good!’ ‘All right!’ ‘Exactly the thing!’ and other similar ex- pressions.” Confederate Porter Alexander was also moved by Grant’s generosity at Appomattox and wrote later: “Gen. Grant’s conduct toward us in the whole matter is worthy of the very highest praise & indicates a great & broad & generous mind. For all time it will be a good thing for the whole United States, that of all the Federal generals it fell to Grant to receive the surrender of Lee” (emphasis in the original).8 Union soldiers like Maj. Holman Melcher of the 20th Maine were also impressed by Grant’s magnanimity and resolved to follow his example. In a letter to his brother, Melcher noted that “the good feeling between the officers and men of the two armies followed General Grant [who] set us the example by his conduct at the surrender.” He went on to “confess” what no doubt many Union officers and soldiers felt—that “a feeling of indignation would rise within me when I would think of all the bloodshed and mourning these same men had caused. But it is honorable to be magnanimous to a conquered foe. And as civi- lized men and gentlemen, we strive to keep such feelings of hatred in subjection.”9 Melcher’s attitude confirmed Lincoln’s insight that, as Catton puts it, “if the terms expressed simple human decency and friendship, it might be that a peace of reconciliation could get just enough of a lead so that the haters could never quite catch up with it.” But it would require just the level of self-con- trol that Melcher imposed on himself. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant standing at Cold Harbor, Virginia, in June 1864 (Na- Having signed the certificate of birth, Grant and Lee still had tional Archives). to attend to the business of delivering a deathblow to the idea of secession while simultaneously injecting some vitality into the They agreed that all officers and men of the Army of promise of this new beginning. They did so by word and deed. Northern Virginia should be paroled and disqualified from When news of the surrender reached the Union lines, the men taking up arms against the government of the United States until began to fire a salute and cheer, but Grant issued orders forbid- properly exchanged; that they should turn over all arms, artil- ding any demonstrations. He wrote later that “the Confederates lery, and public property to the Union army; but that officers were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their should not be deprived of their sidearms, horses, and baggage. downfall.” While Grant taught his men to resist acts of humili- In stating that “each officer and man will be allowed to return to ation, Lee’s assignment was to instill stoic dignity. their homes not to be disturbed by United States authority so The Confederates could not believe what had transpired. Orderly long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where Sgt. James Whitehorne of the 12th Virginia, wrote in his diary, “I they may reside,” Grant effectively made it impossible for Lee was thunderstruck.… What would Jackson, Stuart, or—any of to be tried for treason. [those who had been killed fighting under Lee] say about us?… It is

3 Article 36. America’s Birth At Appomattox humiliating in the extreme. I never expected to see men cry as they on the porch of the McLean house waiting for his officers to pre- did this morning. All the officers cried and most of the privates broke pare his army to leave Appomattox, they began arriving with many down and wept like children and Oh, Lord! I cried too.” of Grant’s old comrades. Along with Phil Sheridan, John Gibbon, The emotions of the weary and humiliated men in Lee’s tat- and Rufus Ingalls came the beloved Confederate Cadmus Wilcox, tered army ranged from bitterness and anger to sadness and ac- who had been best man at Grant’s wedding. Confederate Henry ceptance. But they were relieved when they learned that they Heth, who had been a subaltern with Grant in Mexico, was joined would be paroled and free to go home rather than sent to Northern by his cousin George Pickett, who also knew Grant from Mexico. prisons. They were also grateful for the much-needed rations. But Pickett and Heth were friends of Gibbon, whose Union division men need more than rations; they need meaning. And only Robert bore the brunt of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. Federal George E. Lee, their beloved Marse Robert, could satisfy that most Gordon and a number of others also came along. pressing of human needs by reinforcing their sense of honor, le- Grant talked with them until it was time to leave. He later gitimating their pride, and redirecting their tired fury. wrote that the officers “seemed to enjoy the meeting as much as though they had been friends separated for a long time while Having signed the certificate of birth, fighting battles under the same flag. For the time being it looked Grant and Lee still had to attend to the very much as if all thought of the war had escaped their minds.”13 No doubt somewhere deep in their hearts were the business of delivering a deathblow to the sentiments of the West Point hymn traditionally sung at the last idea of secession while simultaneously chapel service before graduation: injecting some vitality into the promise When shall we meet again? of this new beginning. Meet ne’er to sever? When will Peace wreath her chain Round us forever? In his farewell order to the army, Lee praised their “four Our hearts will ne’er repose years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and Safe from each blast that blows fortitude,” told them that they were brave and had “remained In this dark vale of woes,— steadfast to the last,” and urged them to peacefully return to Never—no, never.14 their homes, taking with them “the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed.” He ended These friends were a band of brothers whom historian James by honoring them: “With an increasing admiration of your con- McPherson describes as “more tightly bonded by hardship and stancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remem- danger in war than biological brothers.” Now, on this spring day brance of your kind and generous consideration for myself, I bid in April, the guns were quiet, and, as historian John Waugh points you all an affectionate farewell.”11 out, they “yearned to know that they would never hear their What Lee accomplished in his address, says Bruce Catton, thunder or be ordered to take up arms against one another again.” was to set the pattern, to give these men the right words to take By the time Longstreet arrived to join other Confederate and with them into the future. “Pride in what they had done would Union commissioners appointed to formulate the details of the grow with the years, but it would turn them into a romantic surrender ceremony, Grant had apparently moved inside to a army of legend and not into a sullen battalion of death.” room that served as his temporary headquarters. When Long- There were Federals, like General Chamberlain, who would street walked by on the way to the room where the commis- not begrudge the Confederates the sentiments that Lee tried to sioners were meeting, Grant looked up and recognized him. He instill in them. Although he believed they were wrong in their rose from his chair and, as Longstreet recalled, “with his old- beliefs, “they fought as they were taught, true to such ideals as time cheerful greeting gave me his hand, and after passing a few they saw, and put into their cause their best.” Reflecting on the remarks offered a cigar, which was gratefully received.”15 parade of Confederates stacking their arms and flags, Chamber- Grant, addressing Longstreet by his nickname, said jokingly, lain, who was appointed to command the formal surrender of “Pete, let us have another game of brag, to recall the days which arms, said: “For us they were fellow-soldiers as well, suffering were so pleasant to us all.”16 The two men had been best friends the fate of arms. We could not look into those brave, bronzed since West Point. They had served together for a time in the faces, and those battered flags we had met on so many fields same regiment at Jefferson’s Barracks, Missouri. Longstreet in- where glorious manhood lent a glory to the earth that bore it, troduced Julia Dent, his distant cousin, to Grant and was present and think of personal hate and revenge.”12 at their marriage vows. Three years after Appommatox, in 1868, Longstreet endorsed Grant’s presidential candidacy and attended his inauguration. WEST POINT 2: SAM GRANT’S COMRADES Three years after Appommatox, in 1868, Longstreet endorsed Grant’s presidential The next day, April 10, some of Grant’s generals asked for per- mission to enter the Confederate lines to meet old friends. As he sat candidacy and attended his inauguration.

4 ANNUAL EDITIONS

“The mere presence of conflict, envy, aggression, or any It resembled a picnic rather than a picket line. They like number of other contaminants does not doom or invalidate a friend- ourselves were glad the war was over. We exchanged ship,” says professor of English Ronald Sharp.17 Much of the be- knicknacks with them, and were reminded of the days havior of the West Pointers can be explained by the enormous when at school we swapped jews-harps for old wooden strength of their friendships to withstand the horror of war. As toothed combs. The articles we exchanged that night Waugh points out, “It had never been in their hearts to hate the were about the same value.22 classmates they were fighting. Their lives and affections for one another had been indelibly framed and inextricably intertwined in Chamberlain wrote of receiving Confederate visitors all the their academy days. No adversity, war, killing, or political es- next day. “Our camp was full of callers before we were up,” he trangement could undo that.”18 In his poem, “Meditation,” Herman recalled. “The inundation of visitors grew so that it looked like Melville, who visited the Virginia battlefront in the spring of 1864, a country fair, including the cattle-show.” celebrated their comradeship in the following verse: J. Tracy Power notes that Confederates Mark the great Captains on both sides. were impressed by Federal soldiers who shared rations The soldiers with the broad renown— or money with them and carried on pleasant, and some- They all were messmates on the Hudson’s marge, times friendly, conversations about the end of the war. Beneath one roof they laid them down; Maj. Richard Watson Jones of the 12th Virginia was And, free from hate in many an after pass, visited by a Federal officer he had known before the war Strove as in school-boy rivalry of the class.19 when they attended the same college. Sgt. James White- horne described the scene when the Federal entered the With some exaggeration, former West Pointer Morris Schaff Confederate camp. “We saw him come up and hold out wrote some forty years later that when “the graduates of both his hand—the Major did nothing for so long it was pain- armies met as brothers” they symbolically “planted then and ful. Then he took the offered hand and I had a feeling the there the tree that has grown, blooming for the Confederate and war was really over.”23 blooming for the Federal, and under those whose shade we now gather in peace.”20 Our knowledge of the hatred and vengeance It was in just such conduct that Bell Wiley, in his study of the that Northerners and Southerners, including many West common soldier, saw “undeveloped resources of strength and Pointers, felt toward each other and of the political conflicts at- character that spelled hope for the country’s future.”24 For his tending Reconstruction might lead us to argue with the vision of own part, Whitehorne declared, “After all, I never hated any one West Pointers planting the tree of peace at Appomattox. But we Yankee. I hated the spirit that was sending them to invade the cannot deny that, as their various diaries, letters, and memoirs south.” document, that is what they thought they were doing.

TWO SIDES BUT ONE IDENTITY EMBATTLED CIVILITY In his moving tribute to the men in gray, Chamberlain asserted A well-known paradox of the Civil War, writes Alan Nolan, that “whoever had misled these men, we had not. We had led was that “although fighting against each other with a devastat- them back home.” While it is true that Confederates had seced- ing ferocity, the enlisted men and officers of the two sides tended from the Union politically, they had not left the Union cul- ed to trust each other and did not see themselves in the manner turally. A significant overarching factor in the reconciliation of of soldiers in most wars.”21 By the time Grant took command the former combatants was the fact that the soldiers “were not of the troubled Army of the Potomac in 1864, as Catton put it, alien foes but men of similar origin.” The Civil War was not a “a fantastic sort of kinship”—“a queer combination of antago- conflict between Southern Cavaliers and New England Puri- nism and understanding”—had grown up in regard to the Army tans, between a nation of warriors and a nation of shopkeepers, of Northern Virginia. “There was no soft sentimentality about or, as abolitionist Wendell Phillips insisted, between a civiliza- it, and the men would shoot to kill when the time for shooting tion based on democracy and one based on an aristocracy came. Yet there was a familiarity and an understanding, at times founded on slavery. Rather, it was, in the words of Walt Whit- something that verged almost on liking, based on solid respect.” man, “a struggle going on within one identity.” Robert Penn Now, on April 9, despite the fact that it was officially forbidden Warren concurs in his argument that the nation that went to war to prevent unpleasant contacts between members of the two “share[d] deep and significant convictions and [was] not a mere armies, as soon as the surrender was announced there was quite handbasket of factions huddled arbitrarily together by historical a bit of visiting back and forth between the lines among Union happen-so.”25 and Confederate troops. Pvt. Charles Dunn of the 20th Maine reported that there was considerable trading that night. While it is true that Confederates had The two picket lines were within speaking distance, and seceded from the Union politically, they had we were on speaking terms with the “Johnnies” at once. There was nothing that resembled guard duty that night. not left the Union culturally.

5 Article 36. America’s Birth At Appomattox

Whether consciously acknowledged by them or not, North- things which had always seemed essential beneath the word erners and Southerners shared significant elements of national ‘American.’ In some mysterious way that nobody quite under- identity that the war could not annihilate. By national identity I stood, the army not only mirrored the change but represented do not mean nationalism, to quote Merle Curti, “in the sense of the effort to find a new synthesis.”29 both confidence in the strength of the federal government and America was becoming American. Johnny Reb and Billy devotion to the nation as a whole,” which in the nineteenth cen- Yank were creating a new kind of American and a new aware- tury was only a hope, an aspiration. Rather, I mean shared na- ness of America. As Warren points out, tionality in the sense that, again, quoting Curti, rank-and-file The War meant that Americans saw America. The farm Americans “[cherish] the Union as a precious symbol of a re- boy of Ohio, the trapper in Minnesota, and the pimp of vered past and a bright future, identifying it with abundance, op- the Mackerelville section of New York City saw Rich- portunity and ultimate peace.”26 mond and Mobile. They not only saw America, they saw The social, cultural, philosophical, and ideological differ- each other, and together shot it out with some Scot of the ences between the combatants have been fully documented. Valley of Virginia or ducked hardware hurled by a Loui- But, as Wiley concluded, “the similarities of Billy Yank and siana Jew who might be a lieutenant of artillery, CSA.30 Johnny Reb far outweighed their differences. They were both Americans, by birth or by adoption, and they both had the weak- Out of the cauldron of hell into which were thrown Billy Yank, nesses and the virtues of the people of their nation and time.” Johnny Reb, their immigrant comrades, as well as the black sol- Alan Nolan concurs: “They shared the same revolutionary ex- diers they all despised, came a pluralistic national community. perience, the same heroes, the same Founding Fathers; and, despite the south’s departure from the Bill of Rights in the effort to protect slavery, they shared, at bottom, a sense of political THE NATIONALIZATION OF LEE values.”27 In the decades following the war, as Americans became more America was becoming American. American, so too did Robert E. Lee’s image. By the turn of the century he was nationally elevated to a hero status shared by only Johnny Reb and Billy Yank were creating a handful of individuals, such as Washington, Lincoln, and Jef- a new kind of American and a new ferson. In their study of the transformation of Lee’s image, Tho- mas Connelly and Barbara Bellows report: “A writer in Harper’s awareness of America. Weekly proclaimed him ‘the pride of a whole country.’… The New York Times praised Lee’s ‘grandeur of soul,’ and the Nation A key element of the national identity that Northerners and called Lee ‘great in gentleness and goodness.’ ”31 Southerners shared was a vision of the nation as the promised The Americanization of Lee began long before he sur- land to which God had led his people to establish a new social rendered. When Brig. Gen. Samuel Crawford, in the 5th order that was to be, as John Winthrop said in 1630, “a city upon Corps of the Army of the Potomac, visited briefly with a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal Lee the day after his surrender to Grant, he told Lee that, falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so should he go North, he would find that he had “hosts of cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be 28 warm friends there.” With tears in his eyes, Lee said, “I made a story and a by-word through the world.” suppose all the people of the North looked upon me as a The sense of being on show and tested before God and the rebel traitor.” Far from it. An unlikely contributor to his world was no less true of Civil War combatants than it was for elevation was Julia Ward Howe, the abolitionist who the Puritans. And just as persistent was the corollary concern wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic”: of Americans that they would fall short of the vision. Because of this “fear of falling away,” as historian Rupert Wilkinson A gallant foeman in the fight, calls it, Northerners and Southerners alike were faced with A brother when the fight was o’er, two basic philosophical questions: Are we worthy of our rev- The hand that led the host with might olutionary forebears? Are we undoing, by our divisiveness, all The blessed torch of learning bore. that they worked so hard to obtain? Both sides compared No shriek of shells nor roll of drums, America with its past and found themselves wanting. Both in- No challenge fierce, resounding far, voked the Revolutionary-Constitution era in seeking redemp- When reconciling Wisdom comes tion of the Republic. To heal the cruel wounds of war. Civil War combatants were also bound by their perception of Thought may the minds of men divide, the changes swirling around them in the wider society as well as Love makes the heart of nations one, And so, the soldier grave beside, within their armies. “Always the army reflected the nation,” 32 writes Catton. And the nation itself was changing. Increased im- We honor thee, Virginia’s son. migration, factory production, and urbanization eroded and de- The nationalization of Lee is a very American cultural prac- stroyed old unities— “unities of blood, of race, of language, of tice: the elevation of worthy “native sons”—beyond the soil of shared ideals and common memories and experiences, the very their birth, beyond the privileges or lack of privileges of their

6 ANNUAL EDITIONS class, beyond the dogma of their creed—to the position of na- head of his surrendering corps told Chamberlain, “General, this tional icon. In 1900 Virginia’s son was inducted into the newly is deeply humiliating; but I console myself with the thought that established Hall of Fame for Great Americans along with Wash- the whole country will rejoice at this day.” Another told him, “I ington, Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. In 1934, went into that cause and I meant it. We had our choice of Virginia presented statues of Lee and Washington to Congress to weapons and of ground, and we have lost. Now that is my flag be placed in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, which houses (pointing to the flag of the Union), and I will prove myself as statues of outstanding citizens from each of the states. The Lee so worthy as any of you.”35 honored—the Lee that won over the nation and was praised by every American president—was, as Connelly and Bellows de- scribe him, “the man of basic American values of decency, duty, References and honor, the devotee of unionism trapped in 1861 by con- flicting loyalties.” Lee was the postwar nationalist, driven by an 1. Bruce Catton, The Centennial History of the Civil War: Never Call Retreat, vol. 3 (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1965), 455–56. unswerving determination to help restore the old Union. 2. James Robertson Jr., Civil War Journal: Robert E. Lee: A History TV Network Presentation, Time-Life Video (Alexandria, Va.: Time, In truth, America had never been united, but 1994). 3. Bruce Catton, A Stillness at Appomattox (New York: Doubleday now it was on the road toward becoming and Co., 1957, 340. 4. David Dixon Porter, quoted in Philip Van Doren Stern, An End to American. Valor: The Last Days of the Civil War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1858), 103–104. But Lee is the supreme paradoxical American hero. As 5. Catton, Stillness at Appomattox, 341. McPherson insightfully points out, Lee’s heroism has to be seen 6. L.A. Hendrick, “Conferences of Commanding Officers,” Free- man’s Journal and Catholic Register, 22 April 1865. Quoted in Frank in terms of his gigantic role in prolonging the war longer than it Cauble, The Surrender Proceedings: April Ninth, 1865, Appomattox might have been. When Lee took command of the Army of Court House (Lynchburg, Va.: H.E. Howard, 1987), 43–44. Northern Virginia in June 1862, the Confederacy was on the 7. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies: The verge of collapse. In the previous four months, it had lost its Last Campaign of the Armies (Gettysburg, Pa.: Stan Clark Military largest city, New Orleans; much of the Mississippi Valley; and Books, 1995 reprint ed.), 244. 8. Gary Gallagher, ed., Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal most of Tennessee; and Maj. Gen. George McClellan’s Army of Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander (Chapel Hill, the Potomac had moved to within five miles of Richmond, the N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 540. Confederate capital. McPherson cites the irony of Lee’s com- 9. William Styple, ed., With a Flash of His Sword: The Writings of mand as follows: Maj. Holman S. Melcher, 20th Maine Infantry (Kearny, N.J.: Belle Grove Publishing Co., 1994), 219. Within three months Lee’s offensives had taken the 10. J. Tracy Power, Lee’s Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Confederacy off the floor at the count of nine and had Virginia From the Wilderness to Appomattox (Chapel Hill, N.C.: driven Union forces onto the ropes. Without Lee the University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 282. Confederacy might have died in 1862. But slavery 11. Thomas Connelly, Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University would have survived; the South would have suffered Press, 1978), 367. only limited death and destruction. Lee’s victories pro- 12. Chamberlain, Passing of the Armies, 270. longed the war until it destroyed slavery, the plantation 13. Ulysses S. Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters: Personal Mem- economy, the wealth and infrastructure of the region, oirs of U.S. Grant: Selected Letters 1839–1865 (New York: Library and everything else the confederacy stood for. That was of America, 1990), 744. 33 14. Quoted in George Pappas, To the Point: The United States Mili- the profound irony of Lee’s military genius. tary Academy, 1802–1902 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993), 322. 15. James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox [1896] (New York: Konecky and Konecky, 1992), 630. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF APPOMATTOX 16. Jeffrey Wert, General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 404. 17. Ronald Sharp, Friendship and Literature: Spirit and Form In an April 12 telegram to Grant, who had departed for Wash- (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1986), 120. ington two days earlier, General Gibbon informed him that “the 18. John Waugh, The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomat- surrender of General Lee’s army was finally completed today,” tox: Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan and Their Brothers (New York: Warner Books, 1994), 500. then went on to comment on the meaning of Appomattox: “I 19. Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War [1866]. have conversed with many of the surrendered officers, and am Quoted in Richard Dilworth Rust, ed., Glory and Pathos: Responses satisfied that by announcing at once terms and a liberal, merci- of Nineteenth-Century American Authors to the Civil War (Boston: ful policy on the part of the Government we can once more have Holbrook Press, 1970), 177. a happy, united country.”34 20. Morris Schaff, The Spirit of Old West Point, 1858–1862 (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1907), 140, 251–53 This is what Lincoln wanted. In truth, America had never 21. Alan Nolan, Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil been united, but now it was on the road toward becoming Amer- War History (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, ican. And this is how it sounded: A Confederate officer at the 1991), 158.

7 Article 36. America’s Birth At Appomattox

22. Quoted in J.J. Pullen, The Twentieth Maine (Philadelphia: J.B. 31. Thomas Connelly and Barbara Bellows, God and General Long- Lippincott Co., 1957), 270. street: The Lost Cause and the Southern Mind (Baton Rouge: Louisi- 23. Quoted in Power, Lee’s Miserables, 283. ana State University Press, 1982), 83. 24. Bell Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb and the Life of Billy Yank 32. Julia Ward Howe, “Robert E. Lee,” in Lois Hill, ed., Poems and [1943, 1952], reprint, Essential Classics of the Civil War (New York: Songs of the Civil War (New York: Gramercy Books, 1990). Book-of-the-Month Club/Louisiana State University Press, 1994), 361. 33. James McPherson, Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the 25. Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War (New York: American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), Random House, 1961), 83. 158. 26. Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought (New Brunswick, 34. Quoted in Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command [1968] (New N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1991), 423–24. York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1994), 473. 27. Nolan, Lee Considered, 157. 35. Chamberlain, Passing of the Armies, 266. 28. John Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity,” (1630), re- printed in Daniel Boorstin, ed., An American Primer, vol. 1 (Chica- go: Chicago University Press, 1966), 22. 29. Catton, Stillness at Appomattox, 216. Anne Wortham is associate professor of sociology at Illinois State Uni- 30. Warren, Legacy of the Civil War, 13. versity.