Posted on 04/10/2010 6:38:26 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
A big anniversary is drawing extra tourists to the battlefields of Appomattox.
One hundred and forty-five years ago Friday, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederacy at Appomattox, bringing the Civil War to an end.
Crowds gathered to re-live the historic moment at the Appomattox National Historic Site.
Actors are playing the part of townspeople to help visitors understand what the area was like in the 1860's.
Friday's events have attracted visitors from across the U.S. Some drove from as far away as Oregon and California.
"We had about 400 people out here on Thursday. It was nice. Don't know the count so far today, but I anticipate even bigger numbers on the weekend when more people have the ability to come out," said Ernie Price, with the national park service.
Events to mark the anniversary continue next week with live music, demonstrations, and re-enactments.
Here are some dates & times:
On April 8-12, 2010 at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, the public is invited to enjoy military and civilian living-history presentations, guided tours, ranger programs, book signings by authors, and a Stacking of Arms Ceremony on Sunday afternoon.
April 9-11 at Clover Hill Village, the Appomattox Historical Society will hold a small-scale reenactment of the events that led to the surrender. Lee's Lieutenants, a reenactment group, will be on-hand at Clover Hill Village to participate in these activities, including: Lee's last war counsel, General Gordon's attempted break-out, Lee-Grant meeting, Stacking of Arms and Reduction of Colors.
April 17-18, Union and Confederate re-enactment groups will be encamped at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. Living history re-enactors will demonstrate historic weapons and battle tactics, including horse-drawn artillery, on the last battlefield of Lee's Army. Activities will include cooking, military inspections, drill, and printing of parole passes for Confederate soldiers in the same building where they were printed in 1865. Each day there will also be a "Stacking of Arms Ceremony" along the stage road, exactly where General Lee's army stacked arms 145 years ago.
April 17, after hours at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, Bring your blankets and chairs for an evening concert of Civil War music at the National Park. The 26th North Carolina Regimental Brass Band will perform a variety of pieces that were familiar to both Union and Confederate soldiers. The park grounds will be free after 5:00 p.m. and the public is invited to walk the village lanes and visit the re-enactor camps. The concert will be at the McLean House and begin at 6:30 p.m.
More information is available on the web at: www.TourAppomattox.com
You are going to get flamed for that statement...
“The day Lee’s army surrendered was one of the best days in our history.”
Yes, federalism was born, comrade, and we are better for it today!
That post doesn’t even warrant a response.
“All ahead full. The Threadnaught has cleared the harbor.”
If one wants to study the birth of intrusive government in our nation, the place to look at is Jeff Davis’s gun-grabbing, constitution-ignoring, extortion-condoning regime.
It isn’t the Confederate’s government we have today, so your point is worthless.
Slavery was a great immorality and remains so today: it denies an individual of the product of his work for the enrichment of another. (Remind you of anything else?)
Still, there are those who would tell you that the Civil War was about state’s rights. And THAT is a war that we lost.
getting rid of slavery? a good thing.
crapping on the constitution as Lincoln did on multiple occasions? a bad thing...
and I am sure that zer0bama will use the past practices as instituted by Lincoln to limit our rights as far as the 1st, 2nd, and 10th amendments are concerned. I am not a fan of our 16th president but I especially LOATHE our 44th Pres__ent.
If the rebs had won, we'd have two federal leviathans today in our land.
Other arguments aside; this article says Lee surrendered the Confederacy. I could have sworn he surrendered the Army of Virginia.
That’s right. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, whose hopes were all gone, not the Confederacy, over which he did not have command.
Us Great Great Great grandchildren are the only ones left to speak on behalf of our forefathers, and we should never let up fighting against the Nazification of them. And that is exactly what your post is doing.
These are the same forefathers who also were heroes of the Revolution, stopping Cornwallis’s army at places like King’s Mountain, Cowpens, and New Orleans. You molding them into slave beating, jackbooted Nazi thugs, is not what Lincoln meant when he said “Malice Towards None”
Only about 5% of the soldiers in the Confederacy even owned slaves, and from their small farms or shops they worked in, few benefited in any way from the slavery system.
I have two non slave owning Great Great Uncles who were with the famed 11th North Carolina Infantry Regiment who’s motto was “First at Bethel, furthest at Gettysburg, and last at Appomattox”. I am proud as hell of them, for standing up not for slavery, but for standing up to what they saw as an invading army.
Gee, how history does seem to repeat itself as that sound like a description of today's regime.
The Battle of Palmitos Ranch, the last land battle of the war--and a Confederate victory--was fought more than a month later, on May 12-13. The war at sea continued, as the CSS Shenandoah captured a Yankee whaling fleet in the Bering Sea, probably saving hundreds of whales. One might say the war was finally over when the Shenandoah docked at a port in England and struck its flag on November 22, 1865.
Tell me again about ignoring the Constitution.
Good post.
You ought to be proud of those men and I too honor their bravery and fortitude. And the fact that they were putting their lives on the line meant that they were not back home extorting, murdering and exploiting their countrymen like the political criminal class that in too many cases led the Confederacy back home and who were unworthy of your great uncles' devotion and courage.
MYTH- Southerners supported slavery while Northerners hated it. No Southern alive today disputes that slavery was morally wrong, but the fact remains that all Northern states once had slaves, and virtually all of the slave ships were owned by Yankees. Profits from the slave trade stayed in the North.
MYTH - Southerners tried to break up the Union. It was New England which invented the idea of secession; first in objection to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubling the nation’s land area, and then in 1814 when New England wanted to trade with enemy England during the War of 1812.
MYTH - The War For Southern Independence was about “slavery.” While the South foolishly defended slavery in early 1860s rhetoric, The War was really fought over power and money. If Northerners had a moral objection to slavery in the 19th century, why did they finance the slave trade in the 18th century?
NOT A MYTH - It was only in the NORTH where owning slaves was still legal during the Civil War.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in the United States. Rather, it declared free only those slaves living in states not under Union control. William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, commented, “We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.” Lincoln was fully aware of the irony, but he did not want to antagonize the slave states loyal to the Union by setting their slaves free.
[edit] Suspension during the Civil War and Reconstruction
On April 27, 1861, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended by President Abraham Lincoln in Maryland and parts of midwestern states, including southern Indiana during the American Civil War. Lincoln did so in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union, leaving the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., surrounded by hostile territory. Lincoln chose to suspend the writ over a proposal to bombard Baltimore, favored by his General-in-Chief Winfield Scott.[2] Lincoln was also motivated by requests by generals to set up military courts to rein in “Copperheads” or Peace Democrats, and those in the Union who supported the Confederate cause. His action was challenged in court and overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court in Maryland (led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney) in Ex Parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861). Lincoln ignored Taney's order. In the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis also suspended habeas corpus and imposed martial law. This was in part to maintain order and spur industrial growth in the South to compensate for the economic loss inflicted by its secession.
In 1864, Lambdin P. Milligan and four others were accused of planning to steal Union weapons and invade Union prisoner-of-war camps and were sentenced to hang by a military court. However, their execution was not set until May 1865, so they were able to argue the case after the war ended. In Ex Parte Milligan 71 U.S. 2 (1866), the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the suspension of the writ did not empower the President to try and convict citizens before military tribunals. The trial of civilians by military tribunals is allowed only if civilian courts are closed. This was one of the key Supreme Court Cases of the American Civil War that dealt with wartime civil liberties and martial law.
In the early 1870s, President Ulysses S. Grant suspended habeas corpus in nine counties in South Carolina, as part of federal civil rights action against the Ku Klux Klan under the 1870 Force Act and 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act.
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