A rubbish article ! Very passive-aggressive !!!
The village is famous for the site of the Battle of Appomattox Court House, and contains the house of Wilmer McLean, where the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the American Civil War.
The interests against reconciliation also included most of the southern gentry and those New York neo-cons of the era who fought Lincoln every step of the way, particularly his issue of greenback currency. Back then, the New York Times was a mouthpiece for the financier elite and acted against Lincoln just like the MSM are acting against Trump, same philosophical source point - modern feudalism and that aspect of old money predatory oligarch capital that would be better termed “monopolism”.
I’ve yet to find a book that explores the European contribution to the Southern secession. It was much larger than we are led to believe. They put Maximilian in power in Mexico for the purpose of opening a southern front from the Mexican border that would wheel east and join the wilderness campaign against Grant.
I’ve also yet to find a book that goes into the recruitment of Native Americans in the Confederate cause or the role of Canada as an intel base of operations running British paid and supplied spy networks in the North. Aaand last but not least, a look at the anti-Union efforts of the enigmatic Southern Freemason Albert Pike in agitating and operating against the Union.
Giving respect to a defeated foe actually helps end the conflict. To engage in punishment only cements the enmity. The differences of the aftermaths of WWI and WWII demonstrate this principle.
That is what I was taught in schools in California.
But then that was before the LBJ Democrats took over, and then their kids went from war protests to the halls of government.
The populist 1913 16th and 17th amendments mortally wounded the USA. It took a little less than 100 years for it to fall. It now is breathing it’s last gasps as it lays paralyzed on the ground, waiting for death.
True words.
Sad footnote about the owner of the “surrender house”. The family (the McLeans) got the house seized twice and then ultimately lost it to foreclosure four years after the war.
As Gen. Sherman might have told Wilmer McLean, “war is indeed hell”.
The South was economically and physically destroyed by Sherman, Sherridan, and even Grant himself. Lee was enough of a soldier to realize the hopelessness of their military position but none of Jefferson’s die hard cabinet was prepared to surrender and they attempted to flee to either Texas or even Mexico to set up their government in exile. Only Jefferson’s capture prevented this from happening.
The bitterness the South felt in defeat would be even more intensified by the Reconstruction period and Southern sympathizers on both sides sabotaged this period as quickly as possible leading to the Jim Crow segregation of the South. It would be a mistake to think things just “healed” with the signing at Appomatox.
What is different with the left today is that they are driven by an ideological dilusion similar to a cult that imagines they are on a “mission from God” to “save the planet” and anyone that opposes them is an infidel. An infidel is not entitled to any of the normal conventions of truth and honor. It is acceptable and praisworthy to lie, cheat, steal from, and otherwise punish the infidel as less than human. This key factor was never the case with the Northern and Southern cultures anchored largely by their common Christianity. They may have hated their adversary but they could not behave in a dishonorable way toward them which would have been “un-Christian”.
Not in Texas, where they remember the last battle of the war, the Battle of Palmito Ranch--a Confederate victory. The Civil War Museum in Fort Worth features a huge diorama of the battle.
“The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was about reconciliation, healing, and restoring the Union.”
Not only did Lee, in recognizing the reality of the situation act to minimize further pointless bloodshed by urging reconciliation but so did Nathan Bedford Forrest, probably as hated by the holier-than-thou contemporary wokists as any Confederate general. His farewell address to his troops is a study in magnanimous classiness:
“SOLDIERS:
By an agreement made between Liet.-Gen. Taylor, commanding the Department of Alabama. Mississippi, and East Louisiana, and Major-Gen. Canby, commanding United States forces, the troops of this department have been surrendered.
I do not think it proper or necessary at this time to refer to causes which have reduced us to this extremity; nor is it now a matter of material consequence to us how such results were brought about. That we are BEATEN is a self-evident fact, and any further resistance on our part would justly be regarded as the very height of folly and rashness.
The armies of Generals LEE and JOHNSON having surrendered. You are the last of all the troops of the Confederate States Army east of the Mississippi River to lay down your arms.
The Cause for which you have so long and so manfully struggled, and for which you have braved dangers, endured privations, and sufferings, and made so many sacrifices, is today hopeless. The government which we sought to establish and perpetuate, is at an end. Reason dictates and humanity demands that no more blood be shed. Fully realizing and feeling that such is the case, it is your duty and mine to lay down our arms — submit to the “powers that be” — and to aid in restoring peace and establishing law and order throughout the land.
The terms upon which you were surrendered are favorable, and should be satisfactory and acceptable to all. They manifest a spirit of magnanimity and liberality, on the part of the Federal authorities, which should be met, on our part, by a faithful compliance with all the stipulations and conditions therein expressed. As your Commander, I sincerely hope that every officer and soldier of my command will cheerfully obey the orders given, and carry out in good faith all the terms of the cartel.
Those who neglect the terms and refuse to be paroled, may assuredly expect, when arrested, to be sent North and imprisoned. Let those who are absent from their commands, from whatever cause, report at once to this place, or to Jackson, Miss.; or, if too remote from either, to the nearest United States post or garrison, for parole.
Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like men.
The attempt made to establish a separate and independent Confederation has failed; but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully, and to the end, will, in some measure, repay for the hardships you have undergone.
In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the merits of the Cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, has elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my past success in arms.
I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous.
N.B. Forrest, Lieut.-General
Headquarters, Forrest’s Cavalry Corps
Gainesville, Alabama
May 9, 1865
Bkmk
bkmk
Started to fall apart right about there.
The northeast industrialist had gained the upper-hand in congress and were choking the south with their tariffs and import-export regulations, passed to protect northern manufacture at the expense of southern agricultural exports. They did not need slaves, they forced their “free” workers to long hours with low wages, and used immigrants as indentured servants. The industrialist then persuaded the many northern immigrants to fight in their place, once war begun.
Slavery was about to die, as it did throughout most of the world; because the onset of the industrial age made it unprofitable. Slave countries, like Brazil, ended slavery in the late 1800s without a civil war. The same would have likely happened in the US and CSA. if the war either had been stopped or prevented.
The moral issues of slavery were also growing in the south as well. Also, southern states had outlawed the import of slaves from Africa for some time before the civil war. But not Boston, who profited on the African slave trade.
I hate these threads. War is never so simple as everyone wants to state. The people fighting and dying didn’t do it over slavery or power or economics. The politicians maybe but not the solders. I think the solders did it for (depending on the uniform) country, state, honor, family, God, ...
Politicians make up reasons but the solders have their own. I am impressed with the raw power and bravery both sides put Up. The south on paper should have lost quickly but they had the chance to have won quickly and did not seize it. To the average solders at the time, I say god bless them. To the politicians, bankers and elite I say FU.
I have lived North, South, East and West. I do love the south.
So all the Southern haters go piss up a rope. We are all squandering their (North and south) sacrifice with CRT, BLM, cronyism, corruption ,..
The original constitution died that day.