On April 9,1865, Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House bringing the Civil War in Virginia to an end.
Confederate general Robert E Lee made the formal surrender of his troops to Union general Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The fighting had continued until that morning, with The Battle of Appomattox Court House ending a campaign that began eleven days earlier at the Battle of Lewis’ Farm. Lee met Grant at Appomattox Court House that afternoon at 1:30 p.m. for the formal surrender.
The surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia brought the war in Virginia to an end, and it is generally viewed as the end of the Civil War because of the significance of Lee’s army. But some other Confederate generals had yet to surrender. And so President Andrew Johnson was not able to officially proclaim an end to the Civil War until sixteen months after Appomattox, on August 20, 1866.
The surrender is discussed in this clip from The Civil War documentary by Ken Burns.
Leave your two cents in the comments. Painting ‘Peace in Union‘ by Thomas Nast (public domain).
On May 9, 1864, General John Sedgwick became the highest ranking United States soldier to be killed in the U.S. Civil War when a sharpshooter killed him at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. But despite Sedgwick’s leadership and his bravery, he is most known for his last words.
“They Couldn’t Hit An Elephant”
As his own men took cover while Confederate sharpshooters from 1000 yards away fired at the Union soldiers, Sedgwick stood tall. Trying to inspire his men, he asked, “Why are you dodging like this? They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” A few moments later, he was shot in the eye and killed.
Sedgwick had been involved in the Civil War from its very beginning, starting out as a colonel. He and his men saw action in places such as the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Chancellorsville, and at the Battle of the Wilderness.
Sedgwick’s death came a little less than a year before the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1965. Also, he died exactly one year before the official end of the war by proclamation on May 9, 1865.
Despite dying while questioning his soldiers, Sedgwick apparently was well-liked by his men, who called him “Uncle John.” Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. George G. Meade were greatly saddened at his death, as was his old friend on the other side of the war, Robert E. Lee.
“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”
There are a number of songs about guns and/or being shot, either literally or figuratively. For example, there is Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got a Gun,” Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” (“shot through the heart. . .”), Eric Clapton’s “I Shot the Sheriff,” the Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Saturday Night Special.”
Other songs include The Clash’s “Tommy Gun,” Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun,” Beastie Boys’s “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun,” and Cypress Hill’s “How I Could Just Kill a Man.” And there is David Lee Roth’s song that invokes the type of animal in Sedgwick’s last words, “Elephant Gun.”
One of the few songs, though, that takes the point of view of the person being shot is Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Dylan wrote the song for the 1973 movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
In Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, director Sam Peckinpah used the song about the last words of a wounded sheriff to accompany the death of Sheriff Colin Baker (played by Slim Pickens). Dylan’s song begins around the 2-minute mark in the following clip from the film.
Unlike the sheriff in “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” General Sedgwick had little time to contemplate the end of his life after he was shot in the head. Yet, his last words have had a lasting power.
Storytellers used Sedgwick’s last words for a number of purposes. Depending on how you look at his death, his last words illustrate courage, bravura, or stupidity.
You have to give some kudos to the guy, though, and many have. There is a monument to Sedgwick at West Point. And among other tributes, there are cities named in Sedgwick’s memory in Arkansas, Colorado, and Kansas. Colorado and Kansas also named counties after Sedgwick. Streets are named after him in New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, nobody remembers the name of the man who killed him. Several Confederate soldiers claimed responsibility, though many believe Benjamin Medicus Powell fired the fatal shot using a long-range Whitworth sharpshooter rifle (with telescope) from England.
What are your favorite last words? Leave your two cents in the comments. Photo via public domain.
After a period of speculation about who might replace Alexander Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill, the U.S. Treasury listened to Americans. What they wanted was to keep the founding father and recent Broadway star on the ten-spot and instead dump Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill. And the person they wanted to replace Andrew Jackson, a populist president who supported pro-slavery policies and is associated with mistreatment of Native Americans, was Harriet Tubman, a former slave who used her freedom to help other slaves escape, help the Union win the Civil War, and help other good causes such as women’s suffrage.
Tubman was born Araminta “Minty” Ross to parents who were held as slaves around March 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland. She grew to adulthood as a slave, eventually in her late 20’s escaping from slavery on her own following a failed attempt with her brothers. Tubman then spent more than a decade helping other slaves escape through the Underground Railroad, often at great risk to herself. Frederick Douglass once wrote in a letter that he knew of nobody except John Brown who had put themselves at more personal risk in the fight against slavery than Harriet Tubman.
When the Civil War broke out, Tubman gave her services to the Union, working in a variety of ways, including as a nurse and as a scout. Someone should make a super hero movie about her.
For a short 7-minute bio of Harriet Tubman, check out the following video. Such a short video does not come close to capturing the extent of her life, but it is a decent overview.
For a longer documentary about Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad, check out the History Channel documentary Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad.
The more you learn about Tubman, the more it makes sense to give her a national honor like putting her on the twenty-dollar bill. Looking back on her amazing life, though, it does raise one question. What took so long?
Leave your twenty dollars in the comments. Photo via public domain.
During the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1, 1863, ending on July 3, the date of Pickett’s Charge. The three-day battle between Union and Confederate armies was the largest military fight in North American history. Additionally, it was an important turning point in the war and led to ten famous sentences by President Abraham Lincoln.
In the video below, Historian Garry Adelman recounts the story of the battle on the fields of Pennsylvania, including how the conflict started by accident. And he does it all in less than five minutes. Check it out.
For more about Gettysburg, check out this video about the soldiers who gathered for the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the battle.
Painting: “Hancock at Gettysburg” by Thure de Thulstrup, showing Pickett’s Charge, restored by Adam Cuerden.
On November 6, 1860, the United States affirmed that a democratic system of government can work when the country elected what many consider the greatest U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln. The election occurred during a time the country was greatly divided, and three other candidates also appeared on the ballot splitting the vote: John C. Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas. Lincoln won with 40% of the popular vote. But the nation had to endure President James Buchanan for several months because Lincoln would not be inaugurated until March 4, 1861.
Lincoln had little time in office before the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. As the nation went into the bloody war, citizens had no idea what the future held — or that one day Conan O’Brien would visit with a group of Civil War reenactors.
What is your favorite Civil War story? Leave your two cents in the comments.
