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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Trophies Of Victory And The Relics Of Defeat: Returning Home In The Spring Of 1865, Peter S. Carmichael
The Trophies Of Victory And The Relics Of Defeat: Returning Home In The Spring Of 1865, Peter S. Carmichael
History Faculty Publications
The remains of a lone apple tree, cut down and carved into small pieces by Confederate soldiers, lay along a rutted dirt road that led to the village of Appomattox Court House. Earlier on 9 April 1865, Robert E. Lee had waited under the shade of the apple tree, anxious to hear from Ulysses S.Grant about surrendering his army. Messages between the generals eventually led to a brief meeting between Lee and two Union staff offices who then secured the parlor in Wilmer McLean's house, where Grant dictated the surrender terms to Lee. As soon as the agreement was signed …
A Whole Lot Of Blame To Go Around: The Confederate Collapse At Five Forks, Peter S. Carmichael
A Whole Lot Of Blame To Go Around: The Confederate Collapse At Five Forks, Peter S. Carmichael
History Faculty Publications
While Confederate major general George E. Pickett was finishing his plate of fried fish at a shad bake, Union major general Philip H. Sheridan was devouring Pickett's command at Five Forks. The sounds of the Federal assault were supposedly silenced by abnormal atmospheric conditions called an acoustic shadow. Pickett and his luncheon companions -- Maj. Gen. Thomas Rosser and Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee -- heard nothing over the sounds of conviviality, but the sudden appearance of the courier alerted the dining party to an alarming reality. This solider claimed that he was nearly shot out of his saddle by Federal …
The History Of Reconstruction’S Third Phase, Allen C. Guelzo
The History Of Reconstruction’S Third Phase, Allen C. Guelzo
Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications
There is no Society for Historians of Reconstruction. That should tell you something. There are also no Reconstruction re-enactments, and no museums teeming with artifacts of Reconstruction. Because what, after all, would there be for us to re-enact? The Memphis race massacre of May 1-3, 1866? And what artifacts would we be proud to display? Original Ku Klux Klan outfits (much more garish than the bland white-sheet versions of the 1920s)? Serial-number-identified police revolvers from the New Orleans’ Mechanics Institute killings of July 30, 1866? Looked at coldly, the dozen years that we conventionally designate as “Reconstruction” constitute the bleakest …