Debates bond by appomattox debate spawned by appomattox. I will argue lee and grant represented distinct visions of what the honorable peace would look like. They were fundamentally incompatible, contrary to a myth. They represented fundamentally incompatible visions of what the peace would look like and why the war turned out the way it did. I also try to take us beyond lee and grant. As the drama unfolded, countrymen and women would crowd the scene and have their own agenda aspirations, and dreams. Among those dreams was the dream of freedom itself. In the eyes of africanamericans, lees surrender was a freedom day, the day, the moment that the promise of emancipation was fulfilled. Lees vision emphasized confederate righteousness. Grants vision emphasized African Americans would associate appomattox with liberation. Lets start with lee and the confederates. Lee and the men in his inner circle , even as this writer took shape, to turn military deceit into moral victory. In lees view, the Union Victory was a victory of might overwrite, over right. This interpretation was enshrined in the famous farewell address he promulgated through his troops the day of the surrender, april 10. Lee says famously, the army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. Lee was implying unmistakably in making this reference to numbers and resources both that the confederate men were and the northern victory was illegitimate. The overwhelming numbers and resources argument was about the outcome of the war, a staking of the claim that the yankees had won, not because of their virtue skill, and bravery, but instead because of brute force, numbers, and resources. In lees eyes an honorable peace would obliterate what he considered the grievous effects of the war those are his words and restore to the country what it had lost. The civic virtue that Lee Associated with the halcyon days of an imagined past, the days of the early republic. Those were the days, as lee saw it, when americans had taken it for granted that virginia would lead the nation. Those were the days, as lee saw it, before abolitionists had viewed africanamericans as free. He exchanges letters with grant. This will be calmlys become lees political keyword. For example, six months after the surrender, he wrote to his friend the following lament about what had been and what might yet again be. He wrote, as long as virtue was dominant in the republic so long was the happiness of the people secure. May and ever merciful god save us from destruction and restore us to the bright hopes and prospects of the past. This was a fundamentally nostalgic view of the peace nostalgic for the longgone days. Lee cast the surrender terms in the best possible light. He believed that those that the surrender was a negotiation in which lee extracted concessions from grant and they believed the piece was contingent on the norths good behavior. It are to protect his troops against possible reprisals, he requested a grant at appomattox a day after the surrender that each individual confederate be issued a printed certificate as proof that the soldier came under the april 9 terms. These certificates vouched that if a surrendered soldier went home and observed the laws where he resided, he would remain undisturbed. Now for confederates, these paroles became cherished artifacts of the war. They represented the consciousness of duties faithfully performed by those men who were there until the final days. But those certificates also represented, in the eyes of confederates, the promise that honorable men would not be treated dishonorably by the victorious yankees. Lee intended to hold the union to that promise. A few weeks after the surrender on april 29, 1865, lee gave an interview with the northern reporter. Lee wanrned in this interview that if arbitrary, vindictive, or revengeful policies were adopted by the yankee government, southerners would consider the ease surrender terms breached and would renew the fight. The big take away is this. Lee has a reputation in the modernday for having counseled resignation to defeat among southerners. For confederates in the immediate postwar period, the evidence shows he was not a symbol of submission. He was a symbol of measured affiants. To bear this out defiance. To bear this out i will talk about how soldiers saw the surrender. The emphasis in the farewell address on confederate righteousness blended seamlessly with the religions convictions of confederate soldiers. Many of the rankandfile surrendered at appomattox clung to the idea that god, however he might chastise his chosen people, would someday deliver them. Such a conviction was the most comforting answer to a pervasive question, had all the suffering been in vain . In his april 9 diary entry William Wyatt asked, has god forsaken us only to answer, i, for one, cant believe it. God has rarely humbled us to exalt us. Grant is prosperity and honor. That night, he noted the men in his regiment clung to him. God moves in mysterious ways. As a historian has put it, providential theology was excellent enough to accommodate defeat for the confederates. Many believed god might still furnish victory in his own appointed way and time. A second major theme in confederate soldiers accounts concerns the social composition of the yankee army, the numbers and resources claim was an argument not only about the size of the yankee army, but the composition of the yankee army. In the confederate eyes, the yankees achieved the overwhelming numbers by filling the ranks, as the southern artillery man put it, foreigners of every nationality and regiments of our former slaves. In other words, confederate soldiers believed they had been compelled to surrender to their social inferiors a mercenary army wellsuited to the unions hard war tactics. Confederates did not believe they had relinquished the moral high ground at appomattox. If we look at these reactions of confederate civilians, we see that echoed in the sediments sentiments of soldiers. Civilians imagined the surrender scene as an enactment of lees superiority to grant. One claim circulated through confederate newspapers in late april of 1865. It purported to be accurate, but was not accurate at all. In its, grant refuses to take it. According to the account, grant says, keep that. You have won it by your gallantry. You have been overpowered and i cannot receive it as a token of surrender from so brave a man. Of course, rants never said any such thing to robert e. Lee. The report seemed credible to confederates because it confirmed the right over might. It would be written that Union Officers cheered for lee as he left the mclean house. A yankees dared not utter a single insulting word to the defeated rebels. Why were the yankees so reticent, even submissive, in victory . It is explained, they feared the lion even in chains. Lee, the lion, still commanding the deference and respect of northerners, and fear. In the year after the war confederates not only again and again invokes the overwhelming numbers interpretation of their defeat. They also invoked the appomattox terms, and particularly the remainundisturbed clause. They invoked in the clause as a shield against social change and a weapon in a looming battle over black civil rights. Republican efforts to give the free people a measure of inequality and opportunity and protection were met by confederate protests that such a radical agenda was a betrayal of the appomattox terms, the prospect of black citizenship as one virginia newspaper put it , molests and disturbs us. The North Carolina poet clark put it most physically. Urging southerners to model their behavior on that of lee she wrote in 1866 that lee had not stooped his grandly proud head one hairs breath as he surrendered to grant. She said, an honorable enemy should not desire. It is idle to attempt or force them to say they were wrong, for they were right. It will surprise you to know that from the start, this view of things, this emphasis on confederate righteousness and the illegitimacy of the yankee victory, this was resoundingly rejected by grant and his inner circle, and the vast majority of Union Soldiers and civilians. It was precisely an admission of wrongdoing and a change of heart that grant sought from his foes. Appomattox was not designed to exonerate confederates, but to assess repentance. He believed he could be versatile precisely because he rendered lee powerless and his cause discredited. It was right over wrong. Lees rhetoric of restoration held no charm for the union general. Restoration connoted a turning back of the clock. Grants eyes were fixed firmly on the future. He would not consider the rolling back. Repudiation of states rights emancipation of the slaves, and lets meant of black troops. Grant and list meant enlistment of black troops. Appomattox, in grants view, he held all the cards on april 9. He issued the parole passes to confederates not to patron view to courage, but to remind them of the obligations attendant upon their status of prisoners of war. Technically, that is what they were. Grant had released them on the promise of their good behavior. Grant felt a meaning of the surrender terms to be unmistakable. I will allude to what ron told us about his mandate for lincoln and the orders he was under to address military surrender, but not political issues. Grant would write, i never claimed the parole gave the prisoners any Political Rights whatever. I knew that was a matter entirely with congress, over which i had no control. In other words, the fraught political question of when and if the concord confederates would be permitted to vote or hold office these were questions to be settled in the civil round by politicians and elected officials. Grants convention of surrender by parole rested on military calculations. Grant felt certain on april 9 that his lenience to lee would forestall the possibility of guerrilla warfare and affect the swift surrender of the remaining Confederate Army in the field. This calculation was sound. The dominoes fell, and you will hear about other dominoes later today. More than anything, the surrender in grants eyes was a vindication, and that is his keyword, if you will. The triumphal of the just cause the cause of the union. In the eyes of grant and union it vindicated the founders belief in a perpetual union. It vindicated the capacity of citizen soldiers, representing democracy. Tout fight the conscripts and dupes of an autocratic society. Thats how Union Soldiers saw confederates. The downfall of the confederacy unburdened the south and the nation of slavery, and institution of orange to all civilized abhorrent to all civilized people. The way was open for the unions moral progress, and white southerners could be distant trawled from their subservience to the slaveholding class. Granted not believe lee is meant to be blameless. For every sin there must be a chance at atonement. Grants magnanimity was designed to affect that atonement. Union soldiers come up for their fall for their part, a their victory both to their superhuman effort and to divine providence. Thanks and praise to almighty god for the great thing he has done for us in saving our country, wrote a major of the 20th maine. He was expressing the widely shared conviction amid union troops that in the end providence and favor the righteous. Two Union Soldiers at appomattox, there seemed to be a satisfaction, in the moment of victory, they had lee nearly surrounded. How fitting it seemed that the defeated confederates world on the low ground well triumphant Union Soldiers lined they amphitheater sweeping around the town at appomattox. Strange providence was surely a work in the fact that the surrender terms were signed in the home of a man who had owned the house on the battleground of manassas. The first great victory of the confederates. The most during sign of divine favor with to be found in the providential timing of the surrender on palm sunday. It was the universal expression among the Union Soldiers that the surrender was a blessed sabbath work. Union soldiers embraced grants policy of magnanimity in their hour vindication because they believed that in so thoroughly defeating the rebels, the federal army had meted out sufficient punishment to the confederacy. Many Union Soldiers felt the confederates were so desperately beaten that they actually welcome to the surrender. There was evidence of this confederate desperation scrawled on the canvas covers of army wagons that were abandoned by the confederates along the line of retreat. One piece of confederate graffiti had read that we cant with you all without something to eat. Moreover, Union Soldiers reckoned that magnanimity was the best means to secure redemption and construction of the south, change hearts and minds. In the series of letters written in the immediate wake of the surrender, and other Army Chaplain took the measure of confederate defeat. He wrote the war rental rendered the south a charnel house. The south had suffered enough always left all that was left was to forgive and forget. He shared a few common among northern soldiers, a view that you lead slaveholders likely and the officer class had led astray the nonslaveholding common folk of the south. And they believed that the unions mission was to distant trawled these men, and that victorious northerners if animated by the spirit of forgiveness could lift up the south, ignorant and degraded poor whites and open up for them a Brighter Future for themselves and their children. As armstrong put it. General of the 67th ohio agreed, he wrote in his diary on april 15 that a show of kindness by the union would demonstrate that right not my to rules, and it was a superior moral character of the north and the commitment to Free Institution and personal enterprise that had won the war. In other words most northerners favored magnanimity, and believed it had important political work to do, if you will. And civilians joined in this embrace of grants policy of magnanimity. Among those northern civilians who embraced magnanimity were abolitionists and radical republicans, those who most wanted to see the south change. It was charged at the time here in the immediate aftermath of the surrender my confederates and buy some copperhead democrats in the north that abolitionists and radical republicans were aimed on vengeance. In the eyes of abolitionists such as Horace Greeley magnanimity was the means to an end, and means to achieve a sacred purpose, to secure the assent of the south to emancipation. Northerners, including many abolitionists saw grants magnanimity as an emblem of their own moral authority. The moral superiority even. That magnanimity approved that a civilization based on free labor is of a higher and more humane type than that based on slavery. Really favored grants magnanimous terms because come as he put it, i want as many rebels as possible to live to see the south rejuvenated and transformed by the influence of free labor. What fitter fate for the likes of Jefferson Davis and robert ely then to have to live in this brave new world and bear witness to a social revolution. In essence, northerners who embraced grants terms of said to the south, we dont want to inflict further punishments. We want you to change. And confederates responded that the demand for change with a form of punishment. Then any demand for change was inherently punitive and a breaking of a compact that had been made at appomattox. This contest over the surrenders meaning and simply pets the south against the north or even the confederacy against the union, it pitted those who favored a social transformation of the south against those who rejected social transformation. We have northerners and southerners on both sides of the question. Here is a theme of divisions within each side. Lincolns opponent in the north political opponents, the democrats that seemed to favor coming to the confederates, these democrats were loath for the party of lincoln to treat the surrender as a mandate. These nor the democrats rallied behind a confederate interpretation of appomattox. As the copperhead newspaper put it, southerners were equal to the north in valor and skills. The confederacy was subdued by overwhelming numbers, not by lincolns skill as a leader. But the south, too, was divided. White southern unions, a beleaguered minority who oppose confederacy during the war rallied behind grants interpretation, and reveled in the fat that in the fact that grant had brought lees army to heal. In the seed of a loyalist legislature pursuing reconstruction under lincolns percent plan, the announcement of lees surrender touched off days of hilarious rejoicing among the towns unionist. In union occupied nashville, tennessee, newly elected governor long the voice of the tennessee unionists, had marked the surrender by issuing a proclamation, setting aside may 4 as a day of thanksgiving prayer to almighty god. For the surrender at appomattox. In his capacity of editor of the unions paper in nashville, he rejoiced that the greatest army and general of the socalled confederacy had been defeated and scattered, made to surrender to grant upon grants own terms. But in the year after the surrender, this dominant union interpretation, with its emphasis on vindication of the norths way of war, vindication of free society, vindication of grants leadership, this dominant interpretation would come to interpretation the betrayal of the true spirit of grants magnanimity. We will see in the postwar period that political partisans will accuse their opponents of betraying the spirit of appomattox. In this case, for granted his followers, the arch betrayer of the truce in upham the true spirit of appomattox was andy johnson, lincoln successor. He comes to power after lincoln is assassinated, johnson very liberally pardons members of the x confederate elites, thousands of pardons to prominent confederates. Under johnsons reconstruction plan, state governments are handed back over to former confederates. They enact black codes, laws very close to the old laws of slavery. Designed to enforce white supremacy. These codes make it a crime for free blacks, free people to act insolence, quote unquote, to whites. They permit white judges to seize children of black families who might be politically active. They levy taxes on black property instituted vagrancy statutes that forced africanamericans to sign annual labor contracts with white employers, typically therefore masters. And this regime of surveillance and regulation passed under the johnson reconstruction was enforced in the south by an allwhite police and judiciary system and white patrollers, often former confederate veterans wearing still there gray uniforms. Under johnson, scores of former confederate officials, including the Vice President , six cabinet officers, for generals, and 58 members of the Confederate Congress were elected to office to serve in the 39th u. S. Congress, which would convene in december of 1865. Some of them yet hadnt been pardoned and needed to be pardoned by johnson. To take their seats. This resurgence of southern political power set the stage for a showdown with congress. The republican majority in congress refused to recognize the government to see these representatives, and congress began to elaborate its own plan for reconstruction, the centerpiece of which was the africanamerican voting. This drama, this recalcitrance on the part of the defeated south radicalized u. S. Grants. Granted not a radical republican by any means during the war. But he watched these developments with some disappointments and even horror. Grant would write that confronted with what he called the foolhardiness of the far too lenient Andrew Johnson, and the blindness of the southern people to their own interests, granted adapted, and gradually worked up to the point where i favored immediate is for africanamericans. It was a position he hadnt taken at the beginning of reconstruction. He saw this as politically necessary, that the only way that grant would argue to dispel the x confederates pretension that they would be able to control the nation again, and were entitled to do so. Heres the thing i found most surprising in my research, the discovery that most surprised me. It was the discovery that grant was deeply disappointed by an resentful of lees refusal to give the victors there do. In a may 1866 newspaper interview, this is little more than a year after the surrender grant took lead to task. He told the reporter he talked to that lee was behaving badly, setting an example, of forced acquiescence, grudging and pernicious as to be hardly realized. An example of forced acquiescence, the grudging and pernicious this effect is to be hardly realized. This image of a grand resentful of lee hardly accords with an image of a gentlemans agreement and a meeting of the minds. A healing moment that has come down to us as myth. Grant presented lee for denigrating the Union Victory as a mere show of force. He resented him for encouraging federate confederates to resist change in the name of restoration. He learned in the year after the war that he would need to enter the political arena to finish the work he had begun on april 9, 1865. I would like to turn out to the third interpretive frame here which talked a little bit about restoration, and vindication. I want to turn to the theme of liberation. No americans hoped more keenly or asserted more fervently that the surrender marked a new era then africanamericans. I will turn to them now. For them, the Union Victory vindicated the cause of black freedom and of racial justice. At appomattox, blacks had been both among the liberators and the liberated. The last clash of grant and lee at the end of this desperate chase across the Central Virginia countryside, weve heard about now from many angles, lees army had tried to break free of the federal trap only to find that its last escape route was blocked by black soldiers in blue. Six regiments of the United States colored troop with one other waiting in the wings. When they heard confirmation of lees capitulation, the black troops exultation new no bounds. They shouted, danced and saying, and embraced each other with exuberant joy. These black regimens at appomattox were an microcosm of black life in america. They included southerners, ex slaves trained to kentuckys cant now think. A Training Ground for troops recruited in the south. They included northern freed blacks trained at camp william penn. They included a group of fascinating individuals, men who would become great leaders in the postwar era, the renowned historian George Washington williams, the baptist editor william j simmons, who was a journalistic mentor to the antilynching crusade or idle wells, and they included these regimens a man, george edmonson, the descendent of the hemmings family for monticello. A fascinating story here in these regimens. For all of these soldiers, regardless of background, their presence on the battlefield was itself the culmination of a long struggle. The struggle dramatized in the movie glory. We know the federal army had initially turned away black volunteers, races ran very deep in the north area north of authorities claim that African American men did not possess the attributes of patriotism encourage and turned them away. Black troops have kept faith that the war was there golden moment. And when regiments finally got their chance to fight, they prove their mettle. The regiments at appomattox had seen considerable action. The eighth u. S. Ct for example survived a bloody initiation and the combat in florida of february, 1864. They joined in the grinding warfare of the Overland Campaign in virginia, and manned the trenches through the siege of petersburg. Entering that city in triumph when it fell in early april. Africanamerican soldiers were keenly aware that even after giving all of this proof of their courage, their march towards equality could still be turned back, so long as powerful confederate armies were still in the field. The confederate government view black Union Soldiers as so many rebellious slaves liable to be insulated executed captured. Black soldiers were aware also that many white northerners viewed their enlistment as a social experiment, testing the capacity of blacks for citizenship. And that many of those whites hoped and expected that the experiment would in the end, fail. Not surprisingly, given this context, black soldiers quickly seized on the Critical Role in lees surrender as a vindication. As william a of the 29th regiment put it in a may 1865 letter, we the colored soldiers have fairly won our rights by loyalty and bravery. Many of these fellow officers shared the conviction that the role in the last bell was decisive. He wrote the morning of the ninth came, the cavalry was being pushed back rapidly towards the station. The boys were falling, scores of them. Why was it, with victory so near . When over the hill a dark column was espied coming down the road at quicktime it. What a relief from the awful suspense, what did we for the color or race of those men, so long as they brought relief to us. We saw courage and determination in their cold, black, faces. Moreover, black troops understood themselves to be an army of liberation, whose defeat of lee was a nail in the coffin of slavery itself. This is very interesting and littleknown part of the story. Abundant evidence exists that suggests that slaves saw appomattox as a freedom day. For many, april 9, 1865 not january 1, 1853, when lincoln promulgates his famous proclamation. April 9 was the real moment of emancipation. As long as confederates control the south, there was no real freedom. So it was lees surrender the brought freedom. Virginia slaves were the first to hear the tidings of lees surrender, and to fathom the significance of the events. None other than booker t. Washington remembers in his classical autobiography how when the war close, the day of freedom came up. The u. S. Army officer belatedly read the emancipation proclamation, announcing that lees surrender had brought of deliverance. We also have is a source for accessing africanamericans a remarkable set of interviews conducted in the 1930s by a new deal agency to Works Progress administration. These were interviews conducted with men and women who had been alive in the time of slavery. There were quite elderly at this point in the 1930s. They have been usually children in the days before the civil war. More than 2000 have left this remarkable testimony about slavery. Its all available on the website of the library of congress. Appomattox echo reminiscences like booker t. Washingtons. They remembered slaves in virginia burst into spontaneous song when they learned that lee had raised the white flag. At that moment, they knew they were free. Slaves far away from events at appomattox experienced grants final triumph as their liberation. They lamented that after president lincolns freedom proclamation in 1863, the status quo of slavery had kept on right as it had. It was only when general lee surrendered that we learned we were free. For some former slaves, the date of lees surrender structure their varied sense of time and of history. It was a washington told her interviewer the first thing i remember was living with my mother about six miles from Scotts Crossing in arkansas, about the year 1856. I know it was 1866 because it was the year after the surrender, and we all knew the surrender was in 1855. Just as appomattox persisted in the memory of ex slaves, it was also an enduring presence on the commemorative calendar of the freed slaves. They met every april 9 to celebrate this important turning point in the road to emancipation. The april line commemorations again as early as 1866, we see blacks commemorating april 9 1856 pledging that italy had never been beaten, the emancipation proclamation would have been to no avail. In my research i found examples of African American communities, philadelphia chicago, all over the country celebrating april line in their churches and other civic settings well into the 20 century. Africanamerican soldiers pivotal role as agents of liberation, helping to free those slaves would long remain a point of pride within black communities. I mentioned George Washington williams, veteran of the appomattox campaign, and one of these regiments would go on to be the preeminent historian of africanamericans in the late 19th century. He noted in his many important history books that come as he put it, the brilliant sighting of black troops that ensure the salvation of the unit this critical moment. The fact that African American troops had defeated lee went additional symbolic meaning to the surrender. For lee and his army of Northern Virginia typified in the eyes of these u. S. Men, the slaveholding elite and its pretense of racial superiority. According to thomas more Thomas Morris chester, the confederate capitulation was sweet because it was a rebuke to the first families of virginia. Whom chester rallied up after the surrender, the fleet footed virginians. In short, men such as George Washington williams or Thomas Morris chester made in and sustained over decades the bold claim that in defeating lees army African American troops had dealt a death blow to all that army stood for, including slavery itself. They insisted not only that the union armys victory emanated from its superior virtue encourage, but also, that black troops in particular exemplified that virtue encourage. Most important, africanamerican soldiers interpretations of the surrender attempted to inscribe a civil rights message into grants magnanimous turn. My point is that we see magna mitty embraced across the political spectrum by americans northerners and southerners, but they viewed that magnanimity with different kinds of meaning. Africanamericans emphasized the promise of appomattox is a moment of racial reconciliation. They depicted black veterans black soldiers in particular as agents of national healing. George washington williams and his 1888 history of the negro troops and the war of the rebellion praised black soldiers for treating the vanquished confederates with, as he put it, quiet dignity and christian humility. He wrote after the Confederate Army had been paroled, the negro troops cheerfully and cordially divided their rations for the enemy, and welcomed them of their campfires on the march back to petersburg. The sweet gospel of forgiveness was expressed in the negro soldiers interactions with the x rebel soldiers, who freely mingled with the black soldiers. It was a spec to a spectacle of magnanimity never before witnessed. Williams was trying to counter a very longstanding charge, a charge that dated back to the 18th century a charge that had been leveled by antievolutionists, northern and southern avenue on antievolutionists are decades. A charge that you could not have emancipation, because if you had emancipation, you would have chaos and race war. For decades, africanamericans and white allies and no, you could have emancipation. You will have the only true chance for peace and harmony. Because slavery is the problem not abolition. This charge it lingered on. And williams is trying to neutralize it by saying that black magnanimity at appomattox the fact that even the black troops willing to forgive their former masters, at this magnanimity was not your for moral authority, a conscious effort, as purposeful as grants own active clemency to lee, to break the cycle of violence that slavery had perpetuated. But could the cycle be broken . Africanamericans who invoked up a maddux is the racial reconciliation were fighting a rearguard action against a determined foe. In the decade after the war defeated southerners oppose the change, opposed to the republican agenda for reconstruction, and many northerners joined them, and began to elaborate the lost cause tradition. A mythology the romanticized the old south and slavery in the confederacy, the demonized congressional reconstruction and the republican agenda as corrupt and punitive, and that sought to justify vigilante violence from groups like the clue clucks clan as a means to restore the old order. Needless to say, for champions of the lost cause, there were no black heroes in the appomattox story. There was no liberation from tyranny, there was no promise of interracial reconciliation. As i suggested earlier unreconstructed rebels interpreted that key line and grant surrender terms, the stipulation the confederate soldiers would remain undisturbed by u. S. Authorities as a promise that although slavery was defunct, the racial caste system would remain undisturbed. In the view of men like John Brown Gordon, radical republicans broke that promise by affording civil rights tax slaves and white southerners in turn fulfill the promise when they redeemed the region from northern misrule. As John Brown Gordon put it in testimony before Congressional Committee in 1871, grant and the union army had been deferential to the confederates at appomattox promising we should not be disturbed so long as we obey the laws. A radicals have broken a promise by telling confederates your former slaves are better fitted to administer the laws than you are. Gordons message was clear the peace was to leave the white south alone to manage its own affairs. In short, for africanamericans no less than for whites appomattox came to represent a lost promise, a betrayal of the promise of freedom. A betrayal both by those whites who rejected black citizenship and by those who gave up the fight for it. However compelling and comforting the image of a surrender is a gentlemans agreement may be, it doesnt begin to capture this complex legacy of appomattox. Deep into the 19th century, appomattox was at the heart of politics of race and reunion. Thank you. [applause] thanks, elizabeth, on the lightning us on the legacy of appomattox. We have a few minutes for questions. If you want to ask a question, come to the microphone and one of the isles. State your name in question, and elizabeth will respond. Im from charlotte, North Carolina. Thank you for writing your wonderful and insightful book on appomattox. There were a couple of matters i was confused about. I was to clarify. Andrew johnson, of course, was from North Carolina. He was known to be from North Carolina, when he was in the Senate Higher to lincolns election. In lincoln had a different Vice President his first term, i believe it was in man named hamlet. How was it that hamlin got dumped, and the Republican Party picked a southerner to be Vice President , who was one heartbeat away from managing the free world . Is a fascinating and cap located character. Johnson is a southern senator from tennessee when the war starts. He a jacksonian democrat who has come to power on representing the human. The yeowman. He talks very tough against the planter elite, who seem to resent a great deal. Johnson is the only southern senator just stick with them union in 1861. He is rewarded by lincoln and the Union Administration by being made governor of tennessee. As military governor, the rules of the pretty heavy hand. He does the bidding of the Republican Administration and lincoln. Johnson had owned a few slaves but he comes even to embrace emancipation as a military necessity, a way to punish the confederates and rob them of resources. Lincoln turns to johnson in 1864 in a sense come out of political expediency, but really their calculations here. One is that lincoln is worried about his reelection. He writes he fears he may not be reelected at all. Use trying to build a coalition of all those who support the union war effort. He wants democrats in that coalition, not the peace democrats, he knows hes not going to get them, but the war democrats that represent most democrats. He want those were democrats. Andy johnson represents those were democrats. The Republican Party in 18 624 rechristened itself the National Union party, the purpose here is to say this is a big tent for all those people that want to win the war. Those copperhead democrats those surrender monkeys are not interested in winning the war. Johnson represents those war democrats, he represents southern unionism. It was a profound, cherished hope of the Republican Administration, an article of faith, again i alluded to this that there was this massive white others who had a latent hostility to the planter class that might be brought on board with the free labor agenda. And a belief in a latent southern unionism. Johnson is the preeminent symbol of southern unionism, was a good representative of the piece that they wanted to make. Link and also initiated an experiment in wartime reconstruction, a very lenient sort of wartime reconstruction, lincolns philosophy was encapsulated in that malice toward none, Charity Towards all address. Radical republicans in congress had rejected aspects of lincolns wartime reconstruction plan, tennessee was one of his model states where the experiment was unfolding. You got that of johnson was on his ticket, the republicans in congress would have to accept the tennessee experiment rather than casting aside. Yet a lot of reasons. Hamlin represented an antislavery constituency that had nowhere else to go, really. He wasnt adding much to the ticket. But johnson represented the hope. One final thing its all too easy to imagine that lincoln didnt give as much thought because he didnt expect again assassinated. Lincoln knew his life was in danger, first of all. Second of all, there had been a couple of disastrous accidental president s already when we had the untimely deaths of Zachary Taylor and William Henry harrison. Lincoln and the republicans knew that johnson might end up eating the man. In one of their Great Campaign tactics was to say our second guy, johnson, can be counted on. Mcclellans Vice President candidate was one of these copperheads that seemed willing to negotiate the war away. Its politics there. Any other questions . Im from greensboro. Could you comment on Frederick Douglass . Frederick douglass is a fascinating figure. He was the preeminent africanamerican political leader of the 19th century. I think we sometimes have a tendency to have to stand in for all of africanamerican thought in the 19th century. And thats a mistake. George washington williams and others were important voices too. And there were political disagreements in the black community as one would expect. But douglas plays a very Important Role in the story i have told, in the sense that douglas will say very famously in 1878, there was a right side in this war in the wrong side in this war. No sentiment ought to cause us to forget. Why would douglas say in 1878, we need to be reminded that there was a wrong side in a right side in the war . He thought people were forgetting it. In a sense, the case the confederates began to build up even appomattox, that they were blameless, that they were the equals an opposite. As to the northerners, that they had not lost their principles would not really push their principles, they would not yield those principles, that case it taken root, and for men like douglas, it was very disturbing to see the fruits of the Union Victory slipping away. In some sense, he is commenting and that moments on the rise of this cult. Douglas and George Washington williams africanamerican, the group of people around around this again includes white northerners and a small cadre of white southern uniqueness that promoted this image of the war that douglas wanted to have some kind of counter narrative to the lost cause. They wanted for americans to have emancipation stand in the center of her memory of the war. And what worried douglas was that the torturous history of slavery and abolition, and emancipation was getting swept under the rug and being replaced by a sort of feel good story feel good for whites, anyways. The story of sheer terror was along both sides, the story to try to drain the political meeting out of the war. For douglas, that was a very alarming trend. Thank you all, very much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] for a different perspective on appomattox, if you will let her get her microphone off, she can be found at the table in the lobby, we have four of her books, we mean to be counted white women and the politics in antebellum virginia. Disunion in the coming of american civil war, southern lady yankee spy, the true story of Elizabeth Van loop. If you are interested in learning more, her book, we have hardcover copies. Even elizabeth hadnt seen the softcover copy of. We just got that in. We have a 10 minute break, hit the restrooms, visit the bookstore, and see sue cochran with the friends group. The comeback for mark bradley in 10 minutes the last program of the day. The breakdown in live coverage of American History tv. We come back to Longwood University for more of todays seminar on the closing of the civil war in 1865. In just a few minutes on cspan3. In the meantime, we join our cspan cities to her tour on the road as they explore the history of cities across the country. Books are welcome to the maine state archives. The crown jewel of the archive collection is housed in about this area. They represent as broad a holding of civil war records of any state, north or south. We have hundreds of thousands of documents here at the main state archives relating to the civil war. Its not the volume of the documents so much that is of importance to the nation, is the breath of what the information contained in those documents represents. Its across the spectrum of our society. Their military documents, but the administration of the war rested with the northern governors in particular, and the union effort. And all of the information, all of the questions, all of the decisions they came in from maine at the time the civil war were made by the governor and in general, they kept the records pertaining to those decisions. In part because maine, then as now, was very short on money. Before these Public Servants could spend a dime, they wanted to know they could account for it. Not just today, but tomorrow and on into what is now the future. Before the start of the main state archives in 1965, a lot of the documents were housed actually by the department of defense. They were in unused stables at camp keys. They were dry, obvious the insecure, but they were kept in archival conditions. The letters that we see today from the military officers, from the wives and mothers and fathers coming in from businessmen asking for contracts, the fact that the governor and the general to special care of them then, we havent today in as close to pristine condition as we can possibly have them. These house the muster rolls mustering in a mustering out roles for the regiments that served from maine during the civil war. There are about 14,700 of these we have in hand. All of which have now been digitized and scanned so that the information contained in them is available to a broader public. When you mustered in, you would enlist and be attached to a company. Early in the war, this would be a local company, somewhere, some town in maine. For example, the city of bangor had a state company of guards. They became company a, the coast guards. Interesting there because one of the enlistees is a fellow who might be familiar to history buffs, the top signature on this enlistment page belongs to a channel in, Hannibal Hamlin, who was abraham lincolns Vice President during his first term. Hamlin at the time was 53 when he enlisted and was living in bangor. He became, interestingly enough, the only sitting Vice President ever to be called to active duty in a time of war. That happened in 1864, when hamlin found out that he was no longer going to be abraham lincolns Vice President of canada. That honor had gone to Andrew Johnson from tennessee, and hamlin was stuck in washington with nothing to do in the summer of 1864. The New Hampshire artillery battery that had been serving at four mcclary in kittery, maine was called forth to washington to help in the defense of the city. In the main Coast Guard Company a was asked by the governor to go down to four mcclary and kittery from bangor, and the bangor area and Hannibal Hamlin decided, what the heck. He and about 69 other maine men took active duty, and served on the coast of maine and four mcclary in kittery maine, the summer of 1864. When his ninetyday service was up, he was mustered out, and he returned to bangor for a little while. And then he engaged in a little bit of election campaigning for his former boss, avraham lincoln. And he returned to washington in september and october of 1864 prior to the national elections. He had never met lincoln before being selected in 1860. They actually met in chicago after the republican convention. Hamlin had a role early in the administration, and it was advising lincoln on what to do. Politically, he understood the decision because they wanted a reach out to the border states and to some of the southern sympathizers. They thought that Andrew Johnson would make a better candidate. Hamlin eventually went back to the senate. He had a great career. But at the age of 54, even then, their Life Expectancy and their political Life Expectancy wasnt intended or ever expected to be the on the age of 60 or 70 years old. He was pretty well situated. While it might have stung at the time, i think it turned out alright for him. But it was interesting, the extraordinary things that came out of such ordinary people. For example, joseph wilson, 24 years old, hes a farmer in belfast, maine. Still very close to his parents. He goes into the fourth maine regimen to go to the front they survive a measles scare. He gets vaccinated before he goes to the front, which in and of itself was novel the time. He is not long in washington, where he gets assigned to your not ask for. And often being run by thaddeus lowell. He had no idea what it was. But wilson was a pretty smart guy, and he knew how to use a telegraph. Apparently, he was afraid of heights. The aaron on a core was the first time that an army used a balloon. They inflated a balloon with a basket beneath it, they tethered the balloon to the ground, and they sent up, in this case, joe wilson. He was about 1000 feet above the ground, looking down upon the Confederate Army and all of its movement. And that he would turn around and telegraph to the union forces on the ground where the confederates were going, and in what strength. So for the first time, beginning at the battle of arlington, the Union Artillery could fire into confederate armies, have a reasonable chance of hitting it without ever seeing them. And wilson writes home to his mother that occasionally, a few shells would come up from the rebels, but that he had been safe. At the same time, he was getting perspective on the war that nobody had had before. Some experts might suggest that the civil war was lost in a place far from the city of washington, with city of richmond. But it was actually lost the mouth of the Savanna River in a place called fort polaski, which had been a federal institution and had been built at the cost of a million dollars. It would serve as the sentry on the Savanna River that would allow traffic of seven goods to get out to the open sea. The eighth maine regimen under captain william macarthur, a guy of wilmington, maine, was working the batteries these rifles. 2. 5 miles downriver from fort polaski. They were cannons that had rifling in them. That allowed a projectile coming out of the muzzle of the canon to work in a spiral, which meant that it would go farther, and would be more accurate. Than anything the use before. The union army had access to these parent rifles. The union troops that sent notice to charles olmsted, the commander of fort polaski that we are going to bombard you, and we really think you want to give