Battle of Appomattox Court House

Of his thoughts also, only his actions reveal anything.

When Grant's note reached him, he rose, and had soon ridden into Appomattox Courthouse, and in a house there waited for Grant.

In a little while, Grant reached the grassy village street, and there, dismounted, stood Sheridan and others.

No significant words were spoken in this hour.

It was officially over when on the 9th of April, 1865, General Robert E. Lee finally surrendered his troops to Union General Ulysses S.

Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.

The final surrender of Confederate troops on the western periphery came in Galveston, Texas on June 2nd.

There have been many stories, both fictional and factual, which have been told of the American Civil War over the years, whether it be for documentary or entertainment purposes.

But anyway, today we're going to try to focus on what's really important.

In the end, the really vital stuff isn't like Pickett's Charge or Lee saying, it is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it, or the surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse.

That stuff

matters, and I

All right, 1865, here we go.

The battles of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, Hacker's Run, Virginia, Bentonville, North Carolina, Fort Stedman, Virginia, Five Forks, Virginia, the third battle of Petersburg, Virginia, Fort Blakely, Alabama, Sailor's Creek, Virginia, Appomattox Station, Virginia, and finally, the decisive battle at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia on April 8th, 1865, which resulted in Lee's surrender to Grant.

There were a few more minor skirmishes, but the war was over.

So there you have it, an episode of Crash Course entirely about battles.

Well, for these.

April 9th, Union troops, they blocked the roads around Appomattox Courthouse.

The Maine men, they prepared for another attack, but the expecting fighting stopped.

Word passed through the ranks that Lee had met with Grant and surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.

Defend it they did against the Indians and against lawless elements such as deserters and other renegade, hostile Union sympathizers, and border ruffians from without the state.

The Negro slave was emancipated by proclamation in Texas on June 19, 1865, Juneteenth, about two months after General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse.

Footnote 3.

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger, U.S. Army, landed at Galveston and issued a general order declaring that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.

Uh, he was an active administrator and, and, and, and, and college president after he'd been the commandant of West Point, uh, for many years.

Um, and above all, and it is usually to his credit, w- at the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, when one of his officers suggested that the men should be dispersed to fight what, uh, in essence was a guerrilla warfare, Lee would not hear of it.

He insisted on surrendering his army intact with his weapons, uh, in perfect order.

And the moment that was done, he worked hard for the reunion-

They destroyed their own city on the way out.

Seven days later, April 9th, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, a small, quiet town in Virginia.

The surrender was signed in the parlor of a man named Wilmer McLean, who had previously moved his family away from the war after the first battle of Bull Run was fought on his farm.

The war followed him anyway.

Uh, besides those two major conflicts, uh, Mance Jolly, he was part of multiple skirmishes and action seen until the eventual end of the war in 1865.

Now, at Appomattox Courthouse, when the Confederacy surrendered to the Union, the overwhelming majority of Confederate troops, um, took an oath of allegiance to the United States.

This was an attempt to heal the nation.

Mm-hmm.

His reports to headquarters were so meticulous that Grant promoted him to his headquarters staff.

When Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, guess who drafted the surrender papers? The Tonawanda Seneca, who couldn't become a lawyer.

Black members of the Union Army were not considered good enough to be soldiers.

They were given service and labor jobs, but when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, there we go, in 1863, black members lobbied for the right to fight as professional soldiers.