Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War

Varon (history, Univ. of Virginia; Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy) argues that our conflicting interpretations of the meaning of General Lee's April 1865 surrender to General Grant at Appomattox Court House, VA, help explain our subsequent varying interpretations of Reconstruction and post-Civil War America. The interpretations of Appomattox began even before the surrender itself. In their very negotiations, Lee and Grant attempted to define the meaning of the surrender. Initial responses focused on Grant's generous terms offered to the defeated rebels. To Lee, the very fact that Grant was generous showed that the South had been morally right but was defeated by overwhelming manpower. For Grant, he was magnanimous because the North was morally right and could afford to be generous in victory to "convert" Southern opinion to Northern sensibilities. To Northerners, it was the superior generalship of Grant, the morality of their cause, and effective soldiering that brought victory. For Southerners and copperheads, it was inferior numbers alone that lost the war. These variances, says Varon, explain Southern resistance to radical Reconstruction, especially as it pertained to civil rights for former slaves. Varon shows that the Northern interpretation of the surrender is in fact better supported by the historical record.