All up and down the lines the men blinked at one another, unable to realize that the hour they had waited for so long was actually at hand. There was a truce, they could see that, and presently the word was passed that Grant and Lee were going to meet in the little village that lay now between the two lines, and no one could doubt that Lee was going to surrender. It was Palm Sunday, and they would all live to see Easter, and with the guns quieted it might be easier to comprehend the mystery and the promise of that day. Yet the fact of peace and no more killing and an open road home seems to have been too big to grasp, right at the moment, and in the enormous silence that lay upon the field men remembered that they had marched far and were very tired, and they wondered when the wagon trains would come up with rations.
One of Ord’s soldiers wrote that the army should have gone wild with joy, then and there; and yet, he said, somehow they did not. Later there would be frenzied cheering and crying and rejoicing, but now … now, for some reason, the men sat on the ground and looked across at the Confederate army and found themselves feeling as they had never dreamed that the moment of victory would make them feel.
“… I remember how we sat there and pitied and sympathized with these courageous Southern men who had fought for four long and dreary years all so stubbornly, so bravely and so well, and now, whipped, beaten, completely used up, were fully at our mercy— it was pitiful, sad, hard, and seemed to us altogether too bad.” A Pennsylvanian in the V Corps dodged past the skirmish line and strolled into the lines of the nearest Confederate regiment, and half a century after the war he recalled it with a glow: “… as soon as I got among these boys I felt and was treated as well as if I had been among our own boys, and a person would of thought we were of the same Army and had been Fighting under the Same Flag.”
Down by the roadside near Appomattox Court House, Sheridan and Ord and other officers sat and waited while a brown- bearded little man in a mud- spattered uniform rode up. They all saluted him, and there was a quiet interchange of greetings, and then General Grant tilted his head toward the village and asked: “Is General Lee up there?” Sheridan replied that he was, and Grant said: “Very well. Let’s go up.” The little cavalcade went trotting along the road to the village, and all around them the two armies waited in silence. As the generals neared the end of their ride, a Yankee band in a field near the town struck up “Auld Lang Syne.”
(A Stillness at Appomattox- Bruce Catton)
Today marks the 150th anniversary of confederate commander General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. The Civil War is undoubtedly among my top 5 favorite American events, although I'm sure I wouldn't have said so at the time. I absolutely love how the surrender ended in "Auld Lang Syne," a famous tune which remarks on not letting former friends become forgotten. Though devastating,the Civil War brought this nation together, for we (the confederate and the union) suffered, endured, and died together to fight for their indiviual rights, liberty, family, and country. As Lincoln once said, "from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
One of Ord’s soldiers wrote that the army should have gone wild with joy, then and there; and yet, he said, somehow they did not. Later there would be frenzied cheering and crying and rejoicing, but now … now, for some reason, the men sat on the ground and looked across at the Confederate army and found themselves feeling as they had never dreamed that the moment of victory would make them feel.
“… I remember how we sat there and pitied and sympathized with these courageous Southern men who had fought for four long and dreary years all so stubbornly, so bravely and so well, and now, whipped, beaten, completely used up, were fully at our mercy— it was pitiful, sad, hard, and seemed to us altogether too bad.” A Pennsylvanian in the V Corps dodged past the skirmish line and strolled into the lines of the nearest Confederate regiment, and half a century after the war he recalled it with a glow: “… as soon as I got among these boys I felt and was treated as well as if I had been among our own boys, and a person would of thought we were of the same Army and had been Fighting under the Same Flag.”
Down by the roadside near Appomattox Court House, Sheridan and Ord and other officers sat and waited while a brown- bearded little man in a mud- spattered uniform rode up. They all saluted him, and there was a quiet interchange of greetings, and then General Grant tilted his head toward the village and asked: “Is General Lee up there?” Sheridan replied that he was, and Grant said: “Very well. Let’s go up.” The little cavalcade went trotting along the road to the village, and all around them the two armies waited in silence. As the generals neared the end of their ride, a Yankee band in a field near the town struck up “Auld Lang Syne.”
(A Stillness at Appomattox- Bruce Catton)
Today marks the 150th anniversary of confederate commander General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. The Civil War is undoubtedly among my top 5 favorite American events, although I'm sure I wouldn't have said so at the time. I absolutely love how the surrender ended in "Auld Lang Syne," a famous tune which remarks on not letting former friends become forgotten. Though devastating,the Civil War brought this nation together, for we (the confederate and the union) suffered, endured, and died together to fight for their indiviual rights, liberty, family, and country. As Lincoln once said, "from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
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